Creative design inspired by biological knowledge: Technologies and methods
Runhua TAN1(), Wei LIU1, Guozhong CAO1, Yuan SHI2
1. School of Mechanical Engineering, Hebei University of Technology, Tianjin 300401, China; National Engineering Research Center for Technological Innovation Method and Tool, Hebei University of Technology, Tianjin 300401, China 2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Milan 20156, Italy
Biological knowledge is becoming an important source of inspiration for developing creative solutions to engineering design problems and even has a huge potential in formulating ideas that can help firms compete successfully in a dynamic market. To identify the technologies and methods that can facilitate the development of biologically inspired creative designs, this research briefly reviews the existing biological-knowledge-based theories and methods and examines the application of biological-knowledge-inspired designs in various fields. Afterward, this research thoroughly examines the four dimensions of key technologies that underlie the biologically inspired design (BID) process. This research then discusses the future development trends of the BID process before presenting the conclusions.
Define the main function (BioTRIZ, MBE); define the problem (BID, DANE); describe the problem by using an adverb triplet (SAPPhIRE); specify the function terms (bio-SBF)
2
Abstractly define problems
Reframe the problem (BID, DANE); functional modeling (BID, MBE)
3
Transport to biology
Look for prototypes in biology (BioTRIZ); search for a biological solution (BID); translate the input into analogies (SAPPhIRE); search for relevant function terms (bio-SBF); general attribute operation (MBE)
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