Transfer of functional structures from multiple bovine teeth to a multilevel grinding head via a biomimetic approach

Abstract

It is highly desirable to improve the crushing performance in powder processing. This study presents a bionic multilevel grinding head for a grinder inspired by the natural friction pairs of bovine teeth. The mechanism of adaptive mastication for various teeth in bovine dentition was revealed, and the main functional structures of the incisor and molars were extracted to construct the biomimetic multilevel surface. To optimize bionic structure parameters, a discrete element method was introduced to simulate the crushing process, and surrogate models that respond to the breakage rate and heat production were constructed and solved. Compared with the conventional multilevel grinding head, highly efficient crushing effects were achieved for the bionic type. Furthermore, its efficient crushing mechanism was discussed.