Biomimetic design uses biological analogies to produce innovative engineering solutions. However, designers face challenges in identifying useful biological analogies and correctly applying the analogies identified to design solutions. To overcome these challenges, this thesis proposes the use of causally related functions in biomimetic design. Causally related functions describe how a desired function is enabled by another function. To support the use of causally related functions, a set of tools was developed. First, the causal relation template and mapping techniques (one-to-one mapping instructions and problem-independent scenario mapping) were devised to assist designers to identify and apply causally related functions from descriptions of biological phenomena. In pen-and-paper experiments with senior undergraduate engineering students, the causal relation template, if used correctly, facilitated the development of design concepts that were analogous to biological phenomena provided as sources of analogy. In addition, the mapping techniques reduced the percentage of participants who made non-analogous associations from biological phenomena to develop design concepts. Another tool developed was the causal relation retrieval method. The method uses syntactic information in natural language sentences to explicitly identify causally related functions. A modified verbal protocol study with graduate engineering students revealed that the retrieval method increased the likelihood of locating biological phenomena relevant to given design problems compared to a single verb-keyword search method. Also, the search matches located with the retrieval method were more likely to facilitate functional association to develop design concepts. These results demonstrate that the knowledge structure of causally related functions can support both the identification of relevant biological phenomena in natural language text and use of analogical reasoning between the biological phenomena and design solutions. The causal relation template and mapping strategies developed contribute to the field of biomimetic design as training methods for designers; and the causal relation retrieval method could serve a technique to bridge the gap between the natural language approach and the modeling approach to biomimetic design.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:OTU.1807/43500 |
| Date | 07 January 2014 |
| Creators | Cheong, Hyunmin |
| Contributors | Shu, Lily H. |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | en_ca |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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