The Biomimicry Design Spiral

In this blog, we make use part of the biomimicry design spiral for the bio-inspiration of the Pleco fish. The design is a step-by-step for turning nature’s strategy into innovative and sustainable design solution. The spiral has 6 different steps arrange in the sequence of identify, translate, discover, abstract, emulate and evaluate.

In this blog creation, we demonstrate on two of the stages of the biomimicry spiral in our novel industrial application, which is the identify and translate stage.

Figure 1. Biomimicry Design Spiral

Identify

In this stage, the goal is to identify the basic functions the design need to perform. The approach is to list down all the possible or required the functions the design need to do.

For our industrial suction device for an underwater crank, the main function is obviously to perform suction. To be more specific, the suction has to be able to sustain under wet conditions which were what we are able to observe from the Pleco fish for the past 12 weeks. As mentioned in the Literature Review, the suckermouth of the Pleco fish and also the Clingfish actually consists of microscopic hair called the “knobs” that actually provided a friction with the attached surface where these hairs actually prevented water from pushing into the suction region which would have fail the suction function.

Translate

In this stage, translate is to convert the desired function of the design into words or terms that makes sense in the biological world. For the function of suction in our bio-inspired design, the function is translated as ‘attach to surface temporarily’. The suction was achieved via the pressure difference between the suction mouth and the surface whereby the vaccum condition on the bottom side of the suction cup is subjected to higher external pressure that kept pushing onto the cup that allow them to be continuously attached to each other. For the suction under water, the additional feature that prevent water from pushing into the sides of the suction cup is by lining the mouth of the suction cups with microscopic hairs that creates friction with the attached surface that form a barrier to prevent water from entering.