Technological watch

The escalating demand for torsion? and bending?resistant structures paired with the need for more efficient use of materials and geometries, have led to novel bio?inspired ingenious solutions. However, lessons from Nature could be as inspiring as they are puzzling: plants and animals offer an enormous range of promising but hierarchically complex configurations. Avian bones are prominent candidates for addressing the torsional and bending issue. They present a unique intertwining of simple components: helicoidal ridges and criss?crossing struts, able to bear flexural and twisting actions of winds. Here, we set how to harmonically move from the natural to the engineering level to formalize and analyze the biological phenomena under controlled design conditions. We isolate the effect of ridges and struts and combine them towards tailored torsion and bending?resistant arrangements. Then we go back to the biological level to extrapolate the avian allometric design approach and translate it into multi?scale lightweight structures at the engineering level. This study exploits the complexity of Nature and the scalability that characterizes the evolutionary design of bird bones through the design and fabrication versatility allowed by additive manufacturing technologies. This paves the way for exploring the transferability of the proposed solution at multiple engineering scales.This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.