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An Ontology of Biomimetics

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Biologically Inspired Design

Abstract

Statistical analysis of the mechanisms and processes in biological organisms (derived from published, peer-reviewed, research papers) reveals that there are ‘design’ rules which could be used to facilitate technical design, thus producing biologically inspired design without the necessity for the designer using such a system to invoke biology or biological expertise since this has already been done when the rules were extracted. Even so, this is not a necessary and sufficient condition for good design. Four principles derived from the Russian system TRIZ (widely used in technology as an objective system for solving problems inventively) are highlighted and summarised as Local Quality; Consolidation or Merging; Dynamics; Prior Cushioning. More design rules, derived in the same way, are needed to expand the importance of information (sensu lato) and materials, two aspects that the TRIZ system currently does not deal with adequately.

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Correspondence to Julian F. V. Vincent .

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© 2014 Springer-Verlag London

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Vincent, J.F.V. (2014). An Ontology of Biomimetics. In: Goel, A., McAdams, D., Stone, R. (eds) Biologically Inspired Design. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-5248-4_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-5248-4_11

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4471-5247-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4471-5248-4

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