Fostering Function-Sharing Using Bioinspired Product Architecture

Abstract In this work, we deduce principles of bioinspired product architectures to leverage biological function-sharing in engineering design. Function-sharing allows multiple functions to be performed by a single structure and can lead to improvements in cost, weight and other performance characteristics. Billions of years of evolution has led to the emergence of function-sharing adaptations in biological systems. However, the current practice of bioinspired function-sharing is largely limited to the solution-driven mimicry of biological structures. In order to effectively leverage biological function-sharing in engineering design, we model and analyze the product architectures of five generalized case studies from the animal kingdom. Further, we create a categorization framework to explore patterns in the function-sharing scenarios associated with biological product architectures. Our results indicate the existence of four types of modules in the biological systems from the animal kingdom. We use the classification framework to deduce four guidelines for the bioinspiration of product architectures. The deduced guidelines can allow engineers to identify and implement novel function-sharing scenarios in early stages of product design. The application of the guidelines has been demonstrated by using a case study.

Fostering Function-Sharing Using Bioinspired Product Architecture Conference Paper