Articles – October 2009

Engineering Marvels (Part 2)

Written by Mike Webb

Welcome back!  In this post we’ll look at our final 5 Engineering Marvels based on Advanced Intelligence.

 6. Turbine Blades – Flippers of the humpback whales are very efficient in propelling the whales forward regardless of being so huge. The tubercles of the flippers are the reason for this hydrodynamic efficiency.  Biomechanist Frank Fish incorporated this design in Wind Turbine blades and has observed that they produce more energy and less noise at lower speeds compared to their normal smooth edged counterparts. 

7. The Eiffel Tower – An architectural marvel when it was introduced to the world at the 1889 World’s Fair, it is based on the structure of one of the strongest bones in the human body – the femur.

The French structural designer, Gustave Eiffel, was given the task of designing a structure for the World Trade Fair in 1889 that was to be held in Paris.  His ideas were based on the work of anatomist Hermann Von Meyer, an anatomist, and a Swiss engineer named Karl Cullman. 

Von Mayer had been conducting research on the femur (thigh bone).  The femur was of interest to Hermann due to its horizontal extension into the hip socket so the load carried by the joint is off center.  It was found that the load could be supported due to a tiny lattice arrangement of bones on the head of the femur called trabeculae.  Cullman noticed that the structure of these trabeculae were identical to the lines of stress and compression produced by the supported load, meaning that the trabeculae were formed exactly where the support was required.  Eiffel then used this developed work to design the Eiffel tower.  Eiffel used a lattice of studs and braces to support the curved structure of the tower, similar to the way that the trabeculae support the curves in the head of the femur. So biomimetics inspired a structure to be designed that was capable of efficiently supporting a structure with an off-center load distribution.  (http://me-wserver.mecheng.strath.ac.uk/group2003/groupl/inspirtational%20designs/Eiffel%20Tower_files/Eiffel%20Tower.htm)

8.  Underwater lenses – Based on the aggregate eye of the Phacopid Trilobite, one of the most ancient of critters.  To have once been thought to be one of the simplest of animals because of its age, its eye is among the most complex of designs.  Why does it need to be so complex?

Anyone who has ever looked into a body of water from above, or from the water to the air above, is familiar with the distorted angles and perceptions.  The trilobites eyes were made to counter that problem.

9. Micro – Rotary engines – Salmonella have six or seven of these engines working simultaneously. Although they are only 30 millionths of a millimeter in diameter, these engines are analogous to man-made electric motors in that they have a rotor which revolves inside a stationary ring, or stator. These incredibly energy-efficient motors whiz around at the incredible speed of some 15,000 revolutions per minute!

A team of skilled Japanese biophysicists has been spending millions of dollars for some years trying to understand exactly how these motors work. So far, it is not yet fully known even how the molecules in the flagellar filaments are arranged. The money being spent on research is in the hope that humans will one day be able to imitate this incredible design information in order to make use of this fantastic microtechnology.

10. “Fast” skins – From swimsuits (Speedo’s newest) to airplane wings, the design                              of shark’s skin is being used.  The key is tooth-like scales called dermal denticles. The scales also discourage barnacles and algae from glomming on—an inspiration for synthetic coatings that may soon be applied to Navy ship hulls to reduce such biofouling.  By reducing drag, speed and energy efficiency is maximized. 

Most of our secular friends attribute these engineering marvels to the “billions of years of evolutionary processes.”  To me, there is no doubt where they come from.  Chance doesn’t begin to explain the complexity found in nature.  Mutations are not intelligent, which means they are not directed.  Just because an animal wants to climb a wall to reach food does not mean that it can direct mutation to produce the ability to do so.  Along the same lines, sonar would seem to be beneficial to most, if not all animals, to some degree.  If it’s a beneficial mutation, why haven’t more animals developed sonar ability?

One other thing to consider:  in many of these designs, such as flight, there is more than one aspect to the design that must work in order for the whole design to work.  If one piece of the puzzle is not in place, nothing works.  Consider for a moment that in evolutionary terms, if a change is not necessary, it isn’t kept.  The chances of several mutations all happening at the same time, in the correct order, are slim to none.  Talk about a leap of faith in belief!

 My faith in a Master Designer may seem ridiculous to some, but the faith in random chance, evolution, accounting for the design and order we see is just as absurd to me.  For all the human thought and intelligence that goes into engineering projects, it’s almost laughable to disallow any thought of intelligence going into the designs we do see in nature.  I’ll put my faith in The One Who has chosen to reveal His handiwork to me every time!

  And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky.”   So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.  God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.”  And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.

  And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so.  God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.  (Genesis 1:20-25)

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Engineering Marvels

Written by Mike Webb (10/24/09)

In 1947, an alien spacecraft plowed into a ranch outside of Roswell, N.M., destroying the craft and killing the occupants.  The remnants from the crash were then moved to Area 51 in Las Vegas for storage and testing. 

Through a process known as reverse engineering, much of the technology we enjoy today was gleaned from this advanced, space-travelling craft.  Our ability to space-travel?  Yup, from the Roswell craft came know-how.  Tang, which is a product of NASA’s space program?  Uh-huh, the Roswell craft.

Advanced technology culled from advanced, superior, alien intelligence?  That’s how the story goes anyway.  Many science fiction stories attest to this process.  Who am I to argue otherwise?  

Science fiction is great, but does it ever happen in real life?  Do we have any examples of science taking the design of an advanced intelligence and making a superior product from that design?  Absolutely!  Here are 10 of them for your consideration from the field of biomimetics – technology that mimics nature. 

     1.  Velcro – Thistle burrs – Society owes a debt of gratitude to Swiss engineer George de Mestral. If he hadn’t been fascinated by how these burrs attached themselves to his pants and his dog’s fur, then we would never have the miracle of Velcro!

     2. Radar/sonar – bats/dolphins  – Their ability to emit sounds and to receive the echo in order to gauge distance, speed, etc., is well known.  Did you know their sonar systems are superior to those devised by man?  Scientists are again reverse engineering advanced intelligence to improve our technology.
 
A bat can know its own sound among thousands of mobile neighbors, detecting its own signals even if they are 2000 times fainter than background noises.  It can “see” prey, such as a fruitfly, up to 100 feet away by echo location and catch four or five in a second. And this whole auditory system weighs a fraction of a gram! Ounce for ounce, watt for watt, it is millions of times more efficient and more sensitive than the radar and sonar contrived by man.

A study published in Bioinspiration & Biomimetics describes how engineers may be taking a cue from dolphins in devising improved sonar systems. Dolphins navigate using sonar-sonar that “outperforms any man-made system, particularly in shallow water,” according to the article.

     3.  Flight – birds/insects/butterflies –  I will spend some time in another post on flight, but suffice it to say, man’s ideas are based on, or have been greatly improved by, God’s original plans in wing design and light-weight, but incredibly strong “frame design.

     4. “Gecko Tape” – Gecko tape is a gum less tape designed by the Manchester University Scientists. This is designed by the inspiration of the Gecko lizard’s ability to climb up walls and walk along ceilings.  The tape exploits “van der Waals forces” — weak intermolecular attractive forces — by mimicking the tiny hair-like structures, called setae, which cover geckos’ feet.    

The tape, which contains millions of plastic fibers, is super-strong, with just a square inch able to support nearly a pound. Furthermore, the material gets stronger with use, tightening its hold, for instance, as it slid along a glass surface. The adhesive detaches with ease when lifted, however, making it ideal for a variety of applications.

From National Geographic:  “Millions of tiny hairs with spatula tips give the gecko’s toes a powerful “stickiness.” Just as remarkable is how quickly it can let go. A tokay gecko needs only about 2,500 of its setae (toe hairs) to hold its body upside down. “If all 6.5 million setae were attached simultaneously,” says Biologist, Kellar Autumn of Lewis and Clark College in Oregon, “they could support 130 kilograms [287 pounds]. Yet the animals manage to remove their feet in milliseconds without measurable force”—a phenomenon related to the angle of the hairs (about 30 degrees) as the foot lifts off.” 

As an added comment here in case you missed the implication:  if the angle had “evolved” differently, too much or too little, the gecko either would be completely immobile, stuck in one place, unable to lift its feet, and thereby making mating impossible and casting geckos into the extinct category, or it would be unable to “stick” making this entire point moot. 

     5. Car designs – Mercedes bionic concept car is designed based on the body shape of a boxfish. Boxfish is found in tropical marine habitats. Despite its unusual-looking shape, the fish is extremely aerodynamic and can therefore move using a minimal amount of energy. It is also able to withstand high pressures and, thanks to an outer skin consisting of hexagonal bone plates, can survive unscathed following collisions with corals or other sea dwellers.
  
In free flow, its body has an outstandingly low cd value of 0.06. These characteristics are also ideal ingredients for a car designed to achieve the best possible levels of energy efficiency and passenger safety.

The bone-plate skeleton of the boxfish demonstrates how nature is able to achieve maximum strength with a lightweight design.  In the case of a car door, for example, this honeycomb-design method increases stiffness by up to 40 percent, while the weight is reduced by around 30 percent.

We’ll do our final 5 in our next post.  See you there …