The Idea in Practice
Velcro: In the early 1940s, Swiss engineer George de Mestral noticed how well small burrs clung in a hook-loop fashion to his pants. The most common Velcro we use today, which can be found in everything from shoes to space shuttles, was designed after Mestral’s original burr model.
The Lily: In 1997 Jay Harman founded his engineering and product design firm PAX Scientific after discovering a better way to design propellers and similar technology. Inspired by the way fluid naturally swirls down a drain, Harman created the Lily, a 6-inch-long impeller that can stir up to 1 million gallons of reservoir water, ensuring that all of it is properly sanitized. Powered by the equivalent of a single household light bulb, the Lily has won accolades for its efficiency and even landed in New York City’s Museum of Modern Art for its sleek design.
Why It Matters Now
To the companies that embrace it, biomimicry is a necessary strategy for coping with soaring energy costs. Instead of hunting down new sources of fossil fuel, bioneers advocate learning how to use what energy we have more wisely. For example, after a visit to a local aquarium to figure out how sharks move so quickly, Mercedes engineers caught a glimpse of a boxfish and were awe-struck by how little drag it seemed to have. They created a model car based on the shape of the fish, tested it in a wind tunnel, and found it had extremely low wind resistance. The model became the diesel-powered Bionic Mercedes, a concept car that gets 70 miles to the gallon, has 20 percent lower fuel consumption, and up to 80 percent lower nitrogen oxide emissions than the average car.
Mimicking nature has other advantages, too — like when complex design problems mystify human engineers. “Biomimicry is basically a problem-solving tool,” says Janine Benyus, the writer whose book, “Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature,” launched the industry. “We know these ideas work, because otherwise they would be extinct.” One of the examples Benyus points to is how Japan redesigned its bullet train in the shape of a bird. The original shape caused a major problem: When the train entered and exited a tunnel, it created a massive sound akin to a sonic boom, which disturbed nearby residents. The engineer charged with solving the problem eventually found inspiration when he attended a bird-watching meeting and realized the kingfisher is perfectly designed to move from one medium (air) to another (water), like the train. The redesigned train took on the shape of the kingfisher, with additional attachments to the roof modeled after owl wings to silence the train. As an added bonus, the train is now 10 percent faster and uses 15 percent less electricity.
What’s Next
The Biomimicry Guild, PAX Scientific, and other companies are teaming up to solve some of the most common engineering problems. The organizations won’t reveal where their inspiration is coming from, but they’re working on solutions for improving the technology behind windmills, cooling and refrigeration systems, noise reduction, shock absorption, and moisture management. In the next year, humpback whale-inspired fan blades, developed by a Toronto-based company called WhalePower, will be hitting the market. Meanwhile an engineering group in India is studying how nature builds (and rebuilds) landscapes in a monsoon environment.
