Biomimetic search: A systematic method for inspiring design concepts

Biomimetics is the study and mimicry of biological phenomena to solve engineering problems. Although many examples of biomimetic designs exist, a method for generating these concepts is not readily available. A previous study introduced a method for generating biomimetic design concepts by utilizing analogies from natural phenomena that are identified in a search for engineering keywords in the glossary of a biological text. In this work, the glossary search is developed further to outline an improved full-text search method for generating biomimetic design concepts. In the process, five novel design concepts for design for remanufacturing are developed. A guideline for successful definition of design problems and selection of keywords for biomimetic searching is developed. Protocols for both manual and automatic determination of relevancy of matches of keywords in the biological text are established utilizing natural languages processing tools in the automatic protocol.