FIGURE 2 - uploaded by Petra Gruber
Content may be subject to copyright.
| Structural optimization concept based on root adaptation and machine learning-The design of a root-inspired foundation follows the root traits adapted to a specific loading condition.
Source publication
The continuous increase in population and human migration to urban and coastal areas leads to the expansion of built environments over natural habitats. Current infrastructure suffers from environmental changes and their impact on ecosystem services. Foundations are static anchoring structures dependent on soil compaction, which reduces water infil...
Context in source publication
Similar publications
Plants respond to the surrounding environment in countless ways. One of these responses is their ability to sense and orient their root growth toward the gravity vector. Root gravitropism is studied in many laboratories as a hallmark of auxin-related phenotypes. However, manual analysis of images and microscopy data is known to be subjected to huma...
Citations
... The biomimicry approach can be employed to transfer biological strategies observed in tree roots toward the design of multifunctional sustainable foundation systems [9,10,16,30,46,47,67]. Literature reviews of root anchorage, root erosion prevention and foundation design were completed and published in [67]. ...
... The biomimicry approach can be employed to transfer biological strategies observed in tree roots toward the design of multifunctional sustainable foundation systems [9,10,16,30,46,47,67]. Literature reviews of root anchorage, root erosion prevention and foundation design were completed and published in [67]. Performance requirements and environmental constraints of foundations differ from those of root systems [16]. ...
... A variety of root traits have been identified as promising for the design of root-inspired anchorage due to their ability to control the system's stiffness, peak strength and ductility: material stiffness and strength, root diameter, taper, orientation and branching pattern [10]. Other principles of interest include surface area-to-volume ratio, porosity, cross section, asymmetry, curvature, friction coefficient and tip morphology [38,67]. Depending on the loading scenario of a design project, different sets of root traits can be analyzed. ...
Deep foundation and anchorage systems are often comprised of simple linear elements, limited by design, materials and techniques employed to build them. Their stability is attained by transferring structural loads to deeper, more stable soil layers across a larger area, reducing potential for excessive settlement and providing resistance against lateral forces from external factors including wind and earthquakes. In comparison, root systems distribute loads to a large volume of soil through a branched morphology of semiflexible elements. Roots also penetrate soil media, reduce erosion, create habitats, and exchange, store and transport resources, while continuously sensing and adapting to environmental conditions. Insights from their integration of multifunctionality can be transferred to civil engineering through biomimicry. As a first step toward designing root-inspired foundations, the effects of various morphological traits (laterals’ length, number of nodes, number of laterals, branching angle and laterals’ cross section) on foundation performance are evaluated through vertical pullout tests. Out of the model properties, general trends were observed, including the positive correlation between models’ surface area and maximum force reached. Yet, due to complex interactions between the model and granular media, no model property fully explained differences in pullout resistance of all models. The effects of each root trait on pullout resistance were analyzed separately, which can serve to adapt the design of root-inspired foundations and exploit granular physics principles. Potential reasons for surprising and counterintuitive results are also presented. Further studies could evaluate the assumptions given as potential explanations of these results by studying identified counterintuitive scenarios.
... Roots are the center of water and mineral intake from the soil (Slovak et al., 2016). The roots exhibit remarkable adaptability in their design, allowing for efficient utilization of a wide range of resources in the rhizosphere (Stachew et al., 2021). RSA is an essential and visible phenotypic outcome of the signaling pathways that enables plants to sense and respond to changes in soil conditions (Kellermeier et al., 2014). ...
Salinity is detrimental to soil health, plant growth, and crop productivity. Understanding salt tolerance mechanisms offers the potential to introduce superior crops, especially in coastal regions. Root system architecture (RSA) plasticity is vital for plant salt stress adaptation. Tall fescue is a promising forage grass in saline regions with scarce RSA studies. Here, we used the computer-integrated and -automated programs EZ-Rhizo II and ROOT-Vis II to analyze and identify natural RSA variations and adaptability to high salt stress at physiological and genetic levels in 17 global tall fescue accessions. Total root length rather than the number of lateral roots contribute more to water uptake and could be used to separate salt-tolerant (LS-11) and -sensitive accessions (PI531230). Comparative evaluation of LS-11 and PI531230 demonstrated that the lateral root length rather than the main root contributed more towards the total root length in LS-11. Also, high water uptake was associated with a larger lateral root vector and position while low water intake was associated with an insignificant correlation between root length, vector, and position. To examine candidate gene expression, we performed transcriptome and transcription analyses using high-throughput RNA sequencing and real-time quantitative PCR, respectively of the lateral and main roots. The main root displayed more differentially expressed genes than the lateral root. A Poisson comparison of LS-11 vs PI531230 demonstrated significant upregulation of PLASMA MEMBRANE AQUAPORIN 1 and AUXIN RESPONSE FACTOR 22 in both the main and lateral root, which are associated with transmembrane water transport and the auxin-activated signaling system, respectively. There is also an upregulation of BASIC HELIX-LOOP-HELIX 5 in the main root and a downregulation in the lateral root, which is ascribed to sodium ion transmembrane transport, as well as an upregulation of THE MEDIATOR COMPLEX 1 assigned to water transport in the lateral root and a downregulation in the main root. Gene-protein interaction analysis found that more genes interacting with aquaporins proteins were upregulated in the lateral root than in the main root. We inferred that deeper main roots with longer lateral roots emanating from the bottom of the main root were ideal for tall fescue water uptake and salt tolerance, rather than many shallow roots, and that, while both main lateral roots may play similar roles in salt sensing and water uptake, there are intrinsic genomic differences.
... Fig. 4(c) provides a visual representation of the designed foundation, illustrating the integration of these elements and highlighting the outcome of their innovative approach. Stachew et al. (Stachew et al., 2021) provided the conceptual design of a hierarchical foundation with multi-phase implementation, where the smooth linear foundation pile was driven vertically into the ground, and individual semiflexible linear elements could be laterally pushed and penetrated into the soil, as illustrated in Fig. 4(d). Meanwhile, mangrove roots play a dual role in their environment. ...
... (a) Diagram of plant root system structure(Calusi et al., 2020); (b) Imagery of root-inspired, 3D-printed anchor models(Mallett et al., 2018); (c) Simplified configurations of the new foundation after the tree root system(Shrestha et al., 2022); (d) Hierarchical foundation concept(Stachew et al., 2021); (e) Schematic diagram of the bed shear stress mechanism influenced by mangrove roots(Kazemi et al., 2021); (f) Inset of the mangrove-inspired skirt pile group around a monopile(Li et al., 2022a); (g) Different models of ant nest structure(Tschinkel, 2010); (h) Diagram of the process of creating climate conditions. ...
... Numerous studies have reported the negative impacts of coastal protection infrastructures on marine and coastal habitats, including ecosystem degradation and consequent loss of biodiversity (Van Slobbe et al., 2013;Moosavi, 2017). Due to static reasons, traditional structures are generally overdimensioned with respect to the ordinary environmental conditions, causing water stagnation and anoxia, and dramatic, unintended changes in the natural nearshore littoral transport (McLachlan and Defeo, 2018;Stachew et al., 2021). ...
... Noteworthy is the study of Stachew et al. (2021) regarding a mangrove root-inspired design for coastal protection. It is an interesting showcase of the biomimetic process from the study of a biological system to the development of a conceptual technical design. ...
... Natural habitats provide crucial ecosystem services, including coastal protection and flooding risk reduction. Due to the expected sea-level, wave action and surge increases, there is a great interest in the identification of effective solutions to conserve/enhance these habitats or mimic their functional strategies (Narayan et al., 2016;Stachew et al., 2021). ...
Coastal erosion is occurring at a faster rate than in the past. The adverse impacts are not negligible at environmental, economic, and socio-cultural levels. Hence, coastal protection is currently seen as an emerging need to counteract erosion impacts and their many negative effects on worldwide ecosystems. In this regard, natural systems and their organisms represent a complex system of solutions that can efficiently create and/or inspire the development of natural, sustainable, and cutting-edge coastal barriers. Coastal ecosystems, such as coral reefs, oyster reefs, mangroves, saltmarshes, seagrasses, and polychaete reefs, act as a natural barrier for destructive waves and wind forces. Moreover, living organisms have evolved unique strategies to withstand their environmental hydrodynamic loadings. This review intends to provide an overview regarding natural systems and related nature-based and bioinspired strategies in the specific field of coastal protection, describing the state of the art, methods, processes, and tools, as well as delineating a promising pathway for new functional and sustainable designs.
... However, although both erosion and accretion occur in coastal areas, their consequences are opposites: sediment is moved away by erosion and built up by accretion. Erosion carries away materials, reducing floor substrate stability that supports coastal vegetation (Stachew et al., 2021). The accumulation of fine sediment on mudflats leads to vertical accretion (Braat et al., 2019) and lower oxygen availability in the soil underneath (Chanvalon de et al., 2015). ...
... The elevation of A2 was slightly higher than that of A1 and A3. The number of primary stilt roots per tree was greater in landward plots than in seaward and intermediate plots, while the density of pneumatophores in landward plots were lower than those in seaward and intermediate plots at Site A1, indicating that stilt roots that anchored the tree became more competitive than pneumatophore roots that had less tidal inundation and less oxygen stress as elevation increased and soil was stabilized (Stachew et al., 2021). ...
... Soil compaction and impermeability compromise water storage and infiltration and so contribute to increased risks of flooding and erosion (Brown, Keath, and Wong 2009;Yang and Zhang 2011;Burns et al. 2012;Alaoui et al. 2018). Civil infrastructure is currently limited to monofunctional systems with simple morphologies, surface textures, and material choices, by the lack of accessibility, maintenance, and adaptation (Das 2007;Frost et al. 2017;Stachew, Houette, and Gruber 2021). ...
... Root strategies of particular interest for the design of biomimetic civil infrastructure include self-penetrating tips, branched system increasing bearing area, enhanced friction through surface texture, integration of multifunctionality into individual components, self-healing processes, programmable decay, and dynamic adaptation to internal and external stimuli, especially in the wake of increasing urbanization and storm events. A comprehensive overview of root strategies of interest and analogies for civil infrastructure is presented in (Stachew, Houette, and Gruber 2021). ...
... multifunctional civil and coastal infrastructure (Stachew, Houette, and Gruber 2021). Porosity is a significant geometrical parameter of aquatic vegetation ecosystems (e.g., seagrass beds, coral reefs, and mangrove forests) that influences bulk drag coefficient, subsequent flow attenuation, steady wake length development, and downstream velocity and turbulence responses (Nepf 1999;Lowe et al. 2007;Kazemi, Van de Riet, and Curet 2017). ...
The study of tree root systems has been introduced in a biomimicry framework for engineering design because of current problems with soil instability due to urbanization, climate change, and the subsequent increase of extreme weather events affecting the built environment. Current civil and coastal infrastructures are static, limited by insertion techniques, monofunctional, and unable to adapt. In nature, root systems grow through various media as a dynamic, adaptive, multifunctional, and self-healing structure. Root systems' morphology can inform the design of multifunctional infrastructure.
The biomimicry transfer from root biology to technology is currently limited to generic morphological principles and strategies. Manual methods to measure and analyze root system architecture are labor-intensive and time-consuming, resulting in a lack of available data and difficulties when comparing results between studies. Recently, digital imaging techniques, including photogrammetry, are deployed to generate virtual 3D models of root systems.
Characterization of root system traits allows the abstraction and biomimicry transfer of specific root traits of interest (e.g., topology, surface-area-to-volume ratio, departure angle, tapering, porosity, curvature) to inform the design of architectural applications. Such characterization requires a standard method to measure root traits automatically, and reliably.
A parametric algorithm was developed with computational architectural tools, Rhinoceros and the plugin Grasshopper, to extract biological root traits of interest from virtual 3D models and find emerging patterns for biomimicry transfer. A skeletonization algorithm, developed in Grasshopper, extracts root system topology and associated architecture traits from 3D models of root systems. A manual step is needed to remove irregularities. Due to the large amount of root data exported, a brief statistical analysis follows to find emerging root morphology patterns. Finally, abstracted patterns will be applied to technical parametric designs toward multifunctional civil and coastal infrastructure.
This semi-automated process, extracting system architecture of biological tree roots from 3D models, not only serves the transfer of biological knowledge to technical applications, but allows for improved studies of root morphological traits in a systematic way, and potentially further investigations such as the adaptation of different species to various environments. Furthermore, it also showcases the potential of architectural tools for research on the morphologies of biological systems.
... According to Wurz et al. (2022), biosensing strategies exhibited in some natural organisms are shaping the research on the management of cytoskeletal dysregulation. Similarly, the resilient, selfhealing, adaptive, and multifunctional characteristics of root systems offer insights into the design of coastal and civil infrastructure (Stachew et al., 2021). The study of Chenaghlou et al. (2020) further noted the inherent adaptivity attribute of natural structures under changing loading conditions (such as the self-centering system of the human spine) to control instability in long-span truss structures. ...
The construction industry has been globally fingered as the major sector responsible for the continued deplorable state of the environment. The rising exploitation of the natural environment by the sector decapacitates the function of the flora and fauna to sustain life on earth. Therefore, the adoption and implementation of sustainability concepts in the construction industry are imperative to reduce the sector’s negative impacts on the environment. The growing field of biomimicry as a sustainability concept has increased global interest and call to maximize the numerous benefits offered by nature. This article is aimed at exploring biomimicry potentials in solving human challenges in a sustainable manner through responsible imitation, emulation, and drawing inspiration from nature. The first part of this paper explores the construction industry with rapt attention to its positive and negative impact on the human and natural environment. The second part provides a comprehensive overview of the biomimicry concept looking at its definitions, tenets, and sustainability standpoint. Finally, biomimicry inspiration, imitation, and emulation are discussed citing examples of their applications within and outside the built environment.
... As some examples, Asuma Janeena et al. [61] developed a biological tool based on the design and function of microorganisms to remove toxic heavy metals from wastewater. Lastly, Stachew et al. [54] abstracted 25 function-focused design features of tree roots (spanning categories of soil erosion, structural support, soil penetration, conditions for living organisms, and other multi-functions) to design building foundations for coastal climates. Table 5 summarizes the engineering application studies involving CPS. ...
... 4.4.1. ISO 18458 technology pull As could be expected, some studies [40,47,54] employed the internationally standardized methodology for biomimetics, ISO 18458 [20]. This method, previously presented in section 2, was adopted and mentioned explicitly in the study by Stachew et al. [54] for designign building foundations based on roots. ...
... ISO 18458 technology pull As could be expected, some studies [40,47,54] employed the internationally standardized methodology for biomimetics, ISO 18458 [20]. This method, previously presented in section 2, was adopted and mentioned explicitly in the study by Stachew et al. [54] for designign building foundations based on roots. In addition, Parhizkar and Di Marzo Serugendo [40] and Pantoja et al. [47] did not explicitly cite the standard, but the methodologies followed were consistent with this approach. ...
Ecosystem biomimicry is a promising pathway for sustainable development. However, while typical form- and process-level biomimicry is prevalent, system-level ecosystem biomimicry remains a nascent practice in numerous engineering fields. This critical review takes an interdisciplinary approach to synthesize trends across case studies, evaluate design methodologies, and identify future opportunities when applying ecosystem biomimicry to engineering practices, including cyber systems (CS), physical systems (PS), and cyber-physical systems (CPS). After systematically sourcing publications from major databases, the papers were first analyzed at a meta level for their bibliographic context and for statistical correlations among categorical variables. Then, we investigated deeper into the engineering applications and design methodologies. Results indicate that CPS most frequently mimic organisms and ecosystems, while CS and PS frequently mimic populations-communities and molecules-tissues-organ systems, respectively (statistically highly significant). An indirect approach is most often used for mimicry at organizational levels from populations to ecosystems, while a direct approach frequently suits levels from molecules to organisms (highly significant). Dominant themes across engineering applications include symbiotic organism search algorithms for CS and ecological network analysis for CPS, while PS applications are highly diverse. For design methodologies, this work summarizes and details ten well-documented biomimetic process models among literature, which addresses an outdated concern for a lack of systematic methods for ecosystem biomimicry. In addition to the Biomimetics Standard ISO 18458, these methods include the Natural Step and Techno-Ecological Synergy framework, among others. Further, the analyses revealed future opportunities from less utilized design methods (e.g., interdisciplinary teams tackling indirect, ecosystem-level projects) to well-established engineering concepts ready for technological advancement (e.g., implementing membrane computing for physical applications). For future studies, this review provides a comprehensive reference for ecosystem biomimetic design practices and application opportunities across multiple engineering domains.
... Currently these studies shift their focus on material research (Rahimizadeh, Sarvestani, Robles, & Ashrafi, 2022), building systems (Castriotto, Carvalho, & Celani, 2019), component design (Stachew, Houette, & Gruber, 2021) (Son, Kim, & Syal, 2022), and urban design (Zari & Hecht, 2020). As each field brings unique performance criteria, different level of complexity on the retrieved and transferred information from nature to architecture is unavoidable ...
Nature provides a vast amount of information to be learnt in various scales with different level of complexities in architecture. Today, the increasing role of computational design and advents in new fabrication technologies enable architectural praxis to incorporate data coming from various disciplines in the design process. Among them, data coming from nature with its animate and inanimate parts are began to be revisited more than before via different approaches. In this study, information transfer from nature to architecture is described as a mapping process defined with different levels depending on the complexity of the information transfer process. Present study explains these levels and exemplifies through the study conducted in Nature-informed Computational Design course.
Mangrove forests are present on most of the shorelines in tropical regions. The submerged roots of mangroves have
a vital role in multiple phenomena that happens along with the
hydrodynamic interaction with incoming water flow, including
sediment transport, shoreline erosion, CO2 capture, and wave
mitigation, among others. The complicated hydrodynamic behavior of the mangrove roots with the incoming water flow can
be related to the free stream velocity, the diameter of the roots,
and the space between them. This study uses two-dimensional
numerical simulations to estimate the flow characteristics through
and around mangrove trees at a reasonable computational cost
for practical applications. We modeled the mangrove trees as
a constant circular array of diameter (D) containing small
circular cylinders of diameter (d), which vary their size to
represent different porosities. The numerical simulation uses
Unsteady Reynolds Average Navier-Stokes simulations (URANS)
with the k-ω shear-stress transport (SST ) turbulence model at
five Reynolds numbers based on the diameter of the porous
cylinder within the subcritical regime (ReD = 600, 1200, 1900,
2500, 3000), and at four different porosities of the array (φ
= 0%, 47%, 70%, and 86%). The results of this simplified
model show that the developed 2-D models capture the main
characteristics of the flow behavior in the near and far wake of
a porous cylinder, which agrees with previous experimental and
more advanced numerical works. The porous bodies (φ = 47% and 70%) exhibit more elongated vortices than a solid cylinder
(φ=0%) and a vortex street with delayed vortex roll-up in the
near wake. Arrays with medium (φ=70%) and high (φ=86%)
porosities reach smaller values of maximum velocity deficit in the
wake compared with low porosity (φ=46%) and a solid cylinder
(φ=0%). However, as the porosity increases, the velocity recovery
in the far-wake occurs at a lower rate. The simulations developed
in this study illustrate the main features of the flow and the
forces of simplified mangrove models providing valuable insights
to practitioners and engineers in the early design of engineered
mangroves for coastal and marine life protection.
