Bionic Model Research Articles

Boundary-layer transition detection by thermography and numerical method around bionic train model in wind tunnel test

Methods of diagnosing aerodynamic characteristics are constantly developing in order to conduct the precise and energy efficient wind tunnel testing of transport vehicles in the prototype design early stages. This is of a special importance when facing the time/cost consumption problems of detection of the transition zone over the simplified design of the high-speed train. Herein the applied thermodynamics found a very significant role in the field of experimental aerodynamics. With the intention of detecting the boundary-layer transition zone the following measurements were applied: the infrared thermography, flow visualization, and drag force measurements. In addition, the CFD was applied to predict the flow behaviour and transition zone, solving PDE consisting of the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations, energy equation, and the equation of state for an ideal gas employing density-based solver. The thermal imaging defined the transition zone by simple application, and fast recognition, while the transition bounds were defined in the analysis. The flow visualization confirmed thermography results and the method itself as favourable, especially in the most expensive early phases of redesigning for aerodynamically optimized and energy efficient solutions. The numerical method was confirmed by the experiments, resulting in acceptable differences in the definition of the transition zone. For a better understanding of the phenomenon, the overlapped implementation of the presented methods focused on forced convection showed as the best solution. Based on the experiences of this research, development of the additional equipment and adjustments will be introduced in the future experiments.

Influence of PVD-duplex-treated, Bionic Surface Structures on the Wetting Behavior for Sheet-Bulk Metal Forming Tools

Bionic surface structures, inspired by the flora, were developed for Sheet-Bulk Metal Forming (SBMF) in order to locally control the friction condition by adjusting the wetting behavior. Five bionic structures were micromilled on ASP®2023 in annealed as well as hardened and tempered conditions. Subsequently, the structured surfaces were plasma-nitrided and coated with a CrAlN thin film. The influence of the treatment method on the structural geometry was investigated with the aid of a scanning electron microscope and 3D-profilometer. The wetting behaviors of water and deep drawing oil (Berufluid ST6007) on bionic surfaces were evaluated using contact angle measurements. The resulting micro-milled structures exhibit an almost identical shape as their bionic models. However, the roughness of the structured surfaces is influenced by the microstructure. The combination of plasma-nitriding and Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD) leads to an increase in roughness. All bionic structures possess higher contact angles than that of the unstructured surfaces when wetted by water. This can be explained by the fact that the structural elevations block the spreading. When the bionic surfaces are wetted by deep drawing oil, the lubricant spreads in the structural cavities, leading to smaller contact angles. Furthermore, the anisotropy of the structure has an influence on the wetting behavior.

An Application of the Shark Skin Denticle Geometry for Windbreak Fence Design and Fabrication

Windbreak fences in open and urban areas can be used to effectively reduce the wind velocity. In this paper we examine how the geometrical shape of the windbreak fence can optimally mitigate wind velocity. We propose an approach for windbreak fence design based on a bionic parametric model of the shark skin denticle geometry, which improves the reduction of the wind velocity around and behind the windbreak fences. The generative model was used to estimate improvements by variations in the parameters of the fence panel's geometrical shape, inspired by shark skin denticles. The results of the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis indicates that the fence surface inspired by shark skin performs much better than both flat and corrugated surfaces. Taking into account the complex geometry of the surface inspired by shark skin denticles, we propose a fabrication process using an expanded polystyrene foam (EPS) material, created using an industrial robot arm with a hot-wire tool. Creating EPS moulds for the shark skin denticle panels allows for a richer variety material to be used in the final design, leading both to higher efficiency and a more attractive design.

Fall prediction based on biomechanics equilibrium using Kinect

The fall is one of the most important research fields of solitary elder healthcare at home based on Internet of Things technology. Current studies mainly focus on the fall detection, which helps medical staffs bring a fallen elder out of danger in time. However, it neither predicts a fall nor provides an effective protection against a fall. This article studies the fall prediction based on human biomechanics equilibrium and body posture characteristics through analyzing three-dimensional skeleton joints data from the depth camera sensor Kinect. The research includes building a human bionic mass model using skeleton joints data from Kinect, determining human balance state, and proposing a fall prediction algorithm based on recurrent neural networks by unbalanced posture features. We evaluate the model and algorithm on an open database. The performance indicates that the fall prediction algorithm by studying human biomechanics can predict a fall (91.7%) and provide a certain amount of time (333 ms) before the elder injuring (hitting the floor). This work provides a technical basis and a data analytics approach for the fall protection.

Tracking control of nonaffine systems using bio-inspired networks with auto-tuning activation functions and self-growing neurons

This paper presents a bio-inspired artificial neural network (Bio-ANN) to tackle the tracking control of complex dynamic systems. The proposed Bio-ANN is motivated by the operant conditioning of biological systems, in which we not only adaptively tune the weights but also adjust the structural parameter of basis functions automatically, significantly enhancing the learning capability of the proposed control. Furthermore, the size of the dataset needed for online ANN training is small and the overall computational cost is low. With the help of such Bio-ANN, we develop a control scheme for a class of single-input single-output non-affine systems, where the operant conditioning bionic model (OCBM) is utilized. By comparing the proposed method with existing self-organizing approaches via numerical simulations, we verify that a faster convergent rate is achieved with better control precision by using the proposed OCBM based control approach.

Bionic models for identification of biological systems

This article proposes a clinical decision support system that processes biomedical data. For this purpose a bionic model has been designed based on neural networks, genetic algorithms and immune systems. The developed system has been tested on data from pregnant women. The paper focuses on the approach to enable selection of control actions that can minimize the risk of adverse outcome. The control actions (hyperparameters of a new type) are further used as an additional input signal. Its values are defined by a hyperparameter optimization method. A software developed with Python is briefly described.

Crashworthiness Design for Bionic Bumper Structures Inspired by Cattail and Bamboo.

Many materials in nature exhibit excellent mechanical properties. In this study, we evaluated the bionic bumper structure models by using nonlinear finite element (FE) simulations for their crashworthiness under full-size impact loading. The structure contained the structural characteristics of cattail and bamboo. The results indicated that the bionic design enhances the specific energy absorption (SEA) of the bumper. The numerical results showed that the bionic cross-beam and bionic box of the bionic bumper have a significant effect on the crashworthiness of the structure. The crush deformation of bionic cross-beam and box bumper model was reduced by 33.33%, and the total weight was reduced by 44.44%. As the energy absorption capacity under lateral impact, the bionic design can be used in the future bumper body.

Giorgio Scarpa’s Model of a Sea Urchin Inspires New Instrumentation

Giorgio Scarpa (1938–2012) was an Italian designer, artist and teacher who worked in bionics, topology and rotational geometry. This article describes Scarpa’s bionic model of “Aristotle’s lantern”—the mouth of the sea urchin. The technical literature on Echinoidea lacks a detailed study of its remarkable mouth mechanism. Scarpa’s model is the only known analysis and physical analogue of the mechanism. It is a striking example of geometrical analysis and craftsmanship, bridging science and art. Built in the early 1970s and described in 1985 in Modelli di Bionica, his model has inspired designs for a biopsy harvester and for a mini-rover to collect soil samples on Mars.

A bionic incremental model of the fashion industry value chain based on a multicellular network

With the development of the fashion industry, it is useful to analyze its value chain increment mechanism in different social environments and economic development situations. In this paper, we propose a bionic increment model of the fashion industry value chain (FIVC) based on a multicellular network structure. First, we summarize the main factors influencing the increment in the FIVC, and regard these as symbiotic biological tissue cells in a multicellular network structure. We then explore the relationships between the cells of different biological tissues in various simulated environments. Furthermore, we analyze the characteristics of the FIVC based on our multicellular network model. A simulated analysis based on a simplified six-cell network is used to demonstrate the flexibility of the bionic increment model. In the six-cell network, the profitability of an enterprise is determined by its four abilities: (1) basic operational ability, (2) human resource utilization, natural resource development and utilization ability, (3) marketing ability, and (4) fashion brand influence, and scientific innovation ability. Through the simulation results, we find that the multicellular tissue network model can effectively simulate the incremental process of the FIVC, which conforms to the intuitive cognition. It can help an enterprise to predict and regulate its value chain increment, and thus has both practical and theoretical significance.

Design of a biologically inspired lower limb exoskeleton for human gait rehabilitation.

This paper proposes a novel bionic model of the human leg according to the theory of physiology. Based on this model, we present a biologically inspired 3-degree of freedom (DOF) lower limb exoskeleton for human gait rehabilitation, showing that the lower limb exoskeleton is fully compatible with the human knee joint. The exoskeleton has a hybrid serial-parallel kinematic structure consisting of a 1-DOF hip joint module and a 2-DOF knee joint module in the sagittal plane. A planar 2-DOF parallel mechanism is introduced in the design to fully accommodate the motion of the human knee joint, which features not only rotation but also relative sliding. Therefore, the design is consistent with the requirements of bionics. The forward and inverse kinematic analysis is studied and the workspace of the exoskeleton is analyzed. The structural parameters are optimized to obtain a larger workspace. The results using MATLAB-ADAMS co-simulation are shown in this paper to demonstrate the feasibility of our design. A prototype of the exoskeleton is also developed and an experiment performed to verify the kinematic analysis. Compared with existing lower limb exoskeletons, the designed mechanism has a large workspace, while allowing knee joint rotation and small amount of sliding.

Design and optimization of a photo-thermal energy conversion model based on polar bear hair

A design and optimization of photo-thermal energy conversion components using textile fiber is very important in solar thermal energy conversion technology. In this study, an innovative bionic photo-thermal energy conversion model based on polar bears hair (Ursus maritimus) energy conversion mechanism has been explored and optimized. Besides, a processing technology and wave guiding principle using this new model were investigated to enhance the solar-thermal energy utilization property. Specifically, the fluorescent property, reflectivity and photo-thermal conversion property of the selected fabricating materials were measured and demonstrated in detail. The experimental results showed that this proposed new model worked well to design high-efficiency photo-thermal energy conversion devices. Also the bionic materials exhibited a high photo-thermal converting efficiency as well as outstanding heat insulation properties.

Study on the Impact Resistance of Bionic Layered Composite of TiC-TiB₂/Al from Al-Ti-B₄C System.

Mechanical property and impact resistance mechanism of bionic layered composite was investigated. Due to light weight and high strength property, white clam shell was chosen as bionic model for design of bionic layered composite. The intercoupling model between hard layer and soft layer was identical to the layered microstructure and hardness tendency of the white clam shell, which connected the bionic design and fabrication. TiC-TiB2 reinforced Al matrix composites fabricated from Al-Ti-B4C system with 40 wt. %, 50 wt. % and 30 wt. % Al contents were treated as an outer layer, middle layer and inner layer in hard layers. Pure Al matrix was regarded as a soft layer. Compared with traditional homogenous Al-Ti-B4C composite, bionic layered composite exhibited high mechanical properties including flexural strength, fracture toughness, compressive strength and impact toughness. The intercoupling effect of layered structure and combination model of hard and soft played a key role in high impact resistance of the bionic layered composite, proving the feasibility and practicability of the bionic model of a white clam shell.

Research on drag reduction performance of turbulent boundary layer on bionic jet surface

Based on the fact that jet formed in outer gill of sharks can reduce the wall friction during the breath process, a bionic jet surface model was established. The numerical simulations were carried out using shear stress transport k−ω model, and the simulation results accorded with that of experiments. First, in the case of fixed flow-velocity ratio, the drag reduction performance would be better with the smaller jet’s angle, and the impact that the angle has on the drag reduction would be greater with the increase in jet hole’s aperture. Second, in the case of fixed jet’s angle, the drag reduction had a nearly linear relationship with flow–velocity ratio. Namely, the drag reduction would be better as the flow–velocity ratio increased, and the larger the jet hole’s aperture, the better the drag reduction. In addition, compared with the case of smoothing surface, the flow structure in turbulent boundary layer was changed by jet, increasing the thickness of viscous bottom layer and decreasing the gradient of normal velocity perpendicular to wall. Finally, the drag reduction mechanism was proposed based on the increased velocity effect of turbulent core, isolation effect of wall and the increased turbulent damping effect.

A modal approach for the efficient analysis of a bionic multi-layer sound absorption structure

The interest of this article lies in the proposition of using bionic method to develop a new sound absorber and analyze the efficient of this absorber in a ski cabin. Inspired by the coupling absorption structure of the skin and feather of a typical silent flying bird &#8212 owl, a bionic coupling multi-layer structure model is developed, which is composed of a micro-silt plate, porous fibrous material and a flexible micro-perforated membrane backed with airspace. The finite element simulation method with ACTRAN is applied to calculate the acoustic performance of the multi-layer absorber, the vibration modal of the ski cabin and the sound pressure level (SPL) near the skier's ears before and after pasting the absorber at the flour carpet and seats in the cabin. As expected, the SPL near the ears was significantly reduced after adding sound-absorbing material. Among them, the model 2 and model 5 showed the best sound absorption efficiency and the SPL almost reduced 5 dB. Moreover, it was most effctive for the SPL reduction with full admittance configuration at both the carpet and the seats, and the carpet contribution seems to be predominant.

Bionic design methodology for wear reduction of bulk solids handling equipment

ABSTRACTLarge-scale handling of particulate solids can cause severe wear on bulk solids handling equipment surfaces. Wear reduces equipment life span and increases maintenance cost. Examples of traditional methods to reduce wear of bulk solids handling equipment include optimizing transport operations and utilizing resistant materials. To our knowledge, the so-called bionic design has not been utilized. Bionic design is the application of biological models, systems, or elements to modern engineering. Bionic design has promoted significant progress on the development of engineering products and systems. In order to use bionic design for wear reduction of bulk solids handling equipment surfaces, this paper introduces bionic design to bulk solids handling on the basis of analogies between biology and bulk solids handling. In addition, a bionic design methodology for the wear reduction of bulk solids handling equipment surfaces is formulated. Based on the bionic design methodology, two bionic models used for abrasive and erosive wear reduction of bulk solids handling equipment surfaces are proposed.

Research and application: conceptual integrated model based on TRIZ and bionics for product innovation

TRIZ and bionics are two techniques for systematic innovation that can help designers achieve innovative product solutions. In order to help the designer to determine conflicts happened in the design of product, an adapted TRIZ method is proposed. Bionics is a new developing frontier science permeating and combine biology, mathematics and engineering studies, and the designer can attain a innovative solution by adapting bionics method. This paper describes a interactive model by integrating TRIZ tools with coupling bionics. Firstly, a new table of inventive principles based on biological function is presented, and the human–computer interaction query interface was designed by MATLAB tool. After design conflicts in product system are determined, designer or group of ideation chooses from the bionic template which is attained according to the conflict Matrix 2003 in TRIZ, The biological tree model is built to analyze biological coupling elements of the bionic template, and then analytic hierarchy process is applied to figure out the main and hypo-main coupling elements. By imitating functions of the main and hypo-main coupling elements, different kinds of bionic coupling models for product can be established. Finally, the designer can evaluate and judge whether the innovative solution is optimal or should be returned to design.

Physiologically Based In vitro Models to Predict the Oral Dissolution and Absorption of a Solid Drug Delivery System.

To understand the sophisticated dynamic behaviors of drug elution and permeation in the gastrointestinal tract (GIT), researchers have tried to reemerge it by employing various in vitro experimental models. However, official in vitro apparatuses routinely used for quality control purposes, employ simple, non-physiologic buffers, and hydrodynamics conditions, and can not accurately perform continuous, dynamic in vivo pharmacokinetics (PK) behaviors. Therefore, different angles of GI physiology information are incorporate into novel models to forecast the dissolution and permeation of drug solid dosage forms. This review, in general, discusses some related studies of physiologically-based mechanical models to predict human absorption following oral administration in four sections. First the GIT, taken out of a complex physiological environment, where the drug is absorbed, distributed, metabolized and excreted (ADME) in the human body, is considered as the physiological basis for active pharmaceutics ingredients (API) dissolved and permeated through the epithelial cell. The second part embodies the theoretical foundation of in vitro models to predict human absorption and the corresponding in vitro.in vivo correlations (IVIVC). The third section summarizes physiologically based dissolution models developed recently, ranging from dynamic compartmental dissolution models, to biorelevant dissolution models based on certain physiological factors, to biphasic dissolution models. The last part is devoted to combined dissolution and absorption models that can be employed to simulate the continuous, dynamic behavior of oral drug delivery being dissolved and subsequently permeated across the GIT. Along with physiologically-based mechanically models spring up, pharmaceutical researchers will harvest better level A IVIVC for oral drug delivery systems, especially for sustained and controlled release preparations. On the other way hand, it will successively promote more effective bionic models to optimize prescription, design formulation, and develop innovative products.

A TISM Based Bionic Model of Organizational Excellence

The purpose of this paper is to identify the enablers for organizational excellence inspired by human body; based on which a generally applicable framework that establishes relationships among these enablers can be developed. In the first part of the paper, human body systems and sub-systems are analyzed from organizational perspective operating in dynamically changing environment. The examination of human body organization subsystems has revealed nine attributes that enable human body to become an optimally managed organization. The nine attributes are: quick responsiveness to external stimuli, coordination, communication, control, optimal supply chain management, adaptability, reliability, innovativeness, and self regulation. In the second part of the paper, these nine enablers are modeled using TISM. The model developed clearly demonstrates the driving and dependence of the enabler in human body organization. It is expected that the proposed model can inspire and provide insight to businesses in improving their design and function which will help in achieving organizational excellence.

Elastic inverted pendulum with backlash in suspension: stabilization problem

In this paper, we investigate the elastic inverted pendulum with hysteretic nonlinearity (a backlash) in the suspension point. Namely, the problems of stabilization and optimization of such a system are considered. The algorithm (based on the bionic model) which provides the effective procedure for finding of optimal parameters is presented and applied to considered system. The results of numerical simulations, namely the phase portraits and the dynamics of Lyapunov function, are also presented and discussed.

Hexapod moving in complex terrains via a new adaptive CPG gait design

Purpose – This paper aims to use the Matsuoka’s neural oscillators as the basic units of central pattern generator (CPG), and to offer a new CPG architecture consisting of a dual neural CPG of circular three links responsible for oscillator phase adjustment, to which an external neural oscillator is added, which is responsible for oscillator amplitude adjustment, to control foot depth to balance itself when treading on an obstacle. Design/methodology/approach – It is equipped with a triaxial accelerometer and a triaxial gyroscope to obtain a real-time robot attitude, and to disintegrate the foot tilt in each direction as feedback signals to CPG to restore the robot’ horizontal attitude on an uneven terrain. The CPG controller is a distributed control method, with each foot controller consisting of a group of reciprocally coupling neural oscillators and sensors to generate different locomotion by different coupling patterns. Findings – The experiment results indicated that the gait design method succeeded in enabling a steady hexapod walking on a rugged terrain, the mode of response is such that adjustments can only be made when the tilt occurs. Practical implications – The overall control mechanism uses individual foot tilts as the feedback signal input to the neural oscillators to change the amplitude and compare against the reference oscillators of fixed amplitude to generate the foot height reference signals that can balance the body, and then convert the control signals, through a trajectory generator, to foot trajectories from which the actual rotation angle of servo motors can be obtained through inverse kinematics to achieve the effect of restoring the balance when traveling. Originality/value – The controller design based on the bionic CPG model has the ability to restore its balance when its body tilts. In addition to the model’s ability to control locomotion, from the response waveforms of this experiment, it can also be noticed that it can control the foot depth to balance itself when treading on an obstacle, and it can adapt to a changing environment. When the obstacle is removed, the robot can quickly regain its balance.