Biomimicry at it’s bird best.
On the feathered fronts of innovative engineering, researchers at the University of California at Berkeley have developed a bio-inspired shock-absorbing system based on a protective strategy found in nature.
When a woodpecker is establishing its territory, it pounds its beak into an often hollow tree to create a knocking sound that carries a long distance. According to the article referenced below, “A woodpecker is known to drum the hard woody surface of a tree at a rate of 18 to 22 times per second with a deceleration of 1200 g, yet with no sign of blackout or brain damage.” The researchers studied what happens to a woodpecker during drumming, and what protects its brain. They concluded that “the woodpecker dissipates the mechanical excitations generated from drumming with its unique endoskeletal structures such as its beak, hyoid, spongy bone, and skull bone.” This information led them to mimic the qualities of those structures to create their shock-absorbing system:
“The shock-absorbing mechanism of the woodpecker suggests that the g-force tolerance of micromachined devices can be improved by: (i) an external layer with high strength which protects the micromachined devices from physical damage (e.g. deformation, fracture, etc) like the woodpecker’s beak; (ii) a viscoelastic layer which evenly distributes incident mechanical excitations like the hyoid; (iii) a porous structure with resilience rigidity which suppresses high-frequency mechanical excitations and prevents transmitted ones from being concentrated into the micromachined devices like the spongy bone; (iv) another high-strength layer which contains a porous structure like the skull bone.”
Subject of Study: Golden-Fronted Woodpecker Melanerpes aurifrons
Reference Article: Yoon S-H; Park S. 2011. A mechanical analysis of woodpecker drumming and its application to shock-absorbing systems. Bioinspiration and Biomimetics. 6: 1-12.
Source: Ask Nature
