Developing biomimetic design principles for product design

Nature has always provided a source of inspiration towards the development of man. With the increasing trend towards sustainable development, biomimetic design has gaining popularity among many engineers and designers who are seeking to utilize biomimetics as a platform to design products and systems that can be as effective and elegant as nature. Biomimetics is still a relatively new field of research in which engineers and biologists are aiming to develop suitable frameworks that enable effective and efficient cross-domain analogy transfer. Due to the inherent difference in nature of engineering and biology, cross-domain analogy transfer between the two fields is hindered by many challenges. This report aims to study the related research being conducted in the field of biomimetics which range from information processing theories to strategies towards biomimetics in product design. Current approaches in the field of biomimetics are studied and analyzed, identifying their strength and weakness. Based on the literature review, an integration of the existing methodologies is formulated, resulting in a proposed framework which includes the usage of Natural language analysis, SBF modeling, and TRIZ. The proposed framework aims to provide a bridging platform which will facilitate the use of biomimetics in product design. A case example of a simple design problem is prepared and presented in this report to illustrate the applicability and feasibility of the proposed framework. Through the evaluation of the framework and case example, limitations of the current systems and proposed framework are identified and concluded. Lastly, based from the groundwork of this project, recommendations for future researches are proposed.Bachelor of Engineering (Mechanical Engineering