'Biomimetics and Technical Textiles:
Solving Engineering Problems with the Help of Nature's Wisdom'
By: Markus Milwich, Thomas Stegmaier
and Heinrich Planck, Thomas Speck and Olga Speck
The significance of inspiration from nature for technical
textiles and for fibrous composite materials is demonstrated by examples of
already existing technical solutions that either parallel biology or are indeed inspired by
biological models. The two different basic types of biomimetic approaches are
briefly presented and discussed for the "technical plant stem." The
technical plant stem is a biomimetic product inspired by a variety of
structural and functional properties found in different plants. The most
important botanical templates are the stems of the giant reed (Arundo donax,
Poaceae) and of the Dutch rush (Equisetum hyemale, Equisetaceae). After
analysis of the structural and mechanical properties of these plants, the
physical principles have been deduced and abstracted and finally transferred to
technical applications. Modern computer-controlled fabrication methods for
producing technical textiles and for structuring the embedding matrix of
compound materials render unique possibilities for transferring the complex
structures found in plants, which often are optimized on several hierarchical
levels, into technical applications. This process is detailed for the technical
plant stem, a biomimetic, lightweight, fibrous composite material based on
technical textiles with optimized mechanical properties and a gradient
structure.
Introducing Biomimetics
Biomimetics or bionics is a relative new term for a process
as old as humankind: borrowing ideas from nature for shaping and creating our
surroundings. "Ancient" biomimetics led to the development of tools,
clothing, and housing. With the dawn of the technical age and later the
industrial age, technical developments deviated from natural prototypes,
because looking closely, those principles were often too complex to be
transferred to engineering techniques.
Instead of using nature's mostly flexible, soft, and
force-adaptive structures, technical constructions mostly went into rigid
rectangular shapes, which could be more easily calculated and mechanically
tooled. Moreover, the invention of the wheel the processing of metal had no natural
example, and they marked tones of the alienation of mankind from nature (Vogel,
1998; Speck and Neinhuis, 2004).
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About the Authors:
The authors
are associated with Institute
of Textile Technology and Process Engineering (ITV) Denkendorf, Denkendorf,
Germany and Plant Biomechanics Group, Botanischer Garten, Universitaet
Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany, respectively.
