Mini Symposium Details

07: Computational Mechanics and Biomimetics

• Annette Birkhold, Advanced Therapies, Siemens Healthcare GmbH
• Renate Sachse, Institute for Structural Mechanics, University of Stuttgart

Biomimetics is a continually growing research field as "learning from nature" is starting to play a more important role in improving, optimizing and developing of technical products. Biomimetics is an interdisciplinary field in which principles from engineering, physics, chemistry and biology are applied to develop materials, systems or machines having functions that mimic biological processes. By definition, a special focus lies on the interdisciplinary work between different sciences. Natural scientists and engineers go the whole way from understanding a principle in nature by investigating a biological role mode to transferring the findings to an application in technical products. This research field is therefore not only related to the development of technical applications, but also to fundamental research in the different disciplines. The interplay of computational modelling with experiments also leads to reverse biomimetics. The aim of this approach is to infer, analyze and understand, through this interplay, the functional and regulatory mechanisms of biological systems in settings where experiments alone deliver only limited results. This mini-symposium is addressed to researchers in engineering and natural sciences who contribute to biomimetic research with any role model and application through numerical simulations.