Engineers often look to the latest technologies and methodologies to innovate. Yet, the most profound source of inspiration and ingenuity has been crafting solutions for billions of years — nature itself. Engineers are dedicated problem solvers, but we only have a fraction of the experience of the oldest and greatest designer. Just as physical laws guide evolution, our approach to generative design is driven by the principles of physics. Here, we explore how ToffeeX’s generative design mirrors nature.
The influence of nature on design innovation
The power of evolution to design and optimize has profoundly influenced some of the most remarkable creators and their innovative designs. These include the invention of Velcro, inspired by the hooks of burdock seeds, and the exquisite, nature-infused designs of Antoni Gaudí. His work, evident in the breath-taking Sagrada Família or Casa Batlló, employs biomimetic principles that captivate observers as efficiently as they manage structural integrity and thermal distribution.
Take a look at the example of the organic-looking arches which allow for an efficient ventilation and natural illumination while retaining structural strength.
The evolutionary mastery of trees and coral reefs
Every design iteration and feedback cycle we undergo as engineers is a mere flicker when measured against the expanse of iterations that evolution has employed. Take, for example, the topology of a tree or coral reef. These are forms that have evolved over epochs to successfully maximize their surface area while also withstanding the structural stresses and physical strains of outside and inside forces. These include storms, wildlife, shifting terrain, and their own increasing mass, sometimes for over a thousand years.
Physics-driven approach reflects natural selection
With physics-driven engineering tools, the components users can create often echo nature’s natural elegance and efficiency. Just as evolution relies on numerous iterations guided by physical laws, generative design is driven by the principles of physics. Natural selection, after all, is a form of generative design that adapts to the specific physics of local environments and constraints to meet distinct objectives.
Both the tree and coral utilize the organic materials available to them to expand their surface area, aiming to achieve specific goals: photosynthesis for the tree and osmosis for the coral reef. Over successive generations, they adapt and refine their structures, mutating and iterating their topologies to optimally meet these objectives. All within the confines of physical laws and environmental constraints.
The user as the environment
Trees and coral reefs adapt to their local environments, utilizing available materials to succeed in functions such as photosynthesis, osmosis, thermal regulation, and maintaining structural integrity.
In ToffeeX, the user becomes the environment!
Users can define their manufacturing constraints, select usable materials, provide a mix of key objectives, and launch the generative design process to optimize for easy and effective natural-looking designs.
ToffeeX optimizes the topology based on the physics of the user-defined environment and its specified constraints to meet any set objective. This process follows the same physical laws as nature, focusing on goals such as heat dissipation or conduction, optimal fluid flow, while maintaining structural integrity. As a result, the designs often closely resemble those honed by natural evolution.
Generative design mirrors nature!
Physics drives the design process, just like in nature
As an example of how the ToffeeX software shares similar advantages to those found in nature, look no further than this example produced to specifically conduct heat from a single heat source.
The design features branching arms extending from the heat source, mirroring the structures seen in coral reefs. This similarity arises from a common objective: to maximize usable surface area. For coral reefs, the expanded surface area facilitates photosynthesis and osmosis; similarly, ToffeeX’s design enhances heat dissipation, demonstrating the software’s ability to emulate natural efficiency in engineering solutions.
Nature’s influence: The circulatory system
Another example, one a little closer to our heart, is to compare a design made in ToffeeX with a similar case in nature: blood vessels. The human circulatory system is carefully designed to pump blood rapidly throughout the body to distribute oxygen and nutrients. It must do this while retaining a stable pressure and the ability to cope with various stresses. The result is a capable and efficient system that lets our body manage its complex balance and well-being in many states and environments.
The human heart pumps between 5 L per minute at rest and 30 L per minute at exercise, and this all needs to be distributed among 60,000 miles of blood vessels without damaging them.
We tasked ToffeeX with a problem similar to what the human circulatory system tries to solve. The physics drives the generative design process towards a similar result. In the following example, ToffeeX designed a solution that allows fluid to spread across a cold plate to maximize the heat exchange, while maintaining pressure and flow rate within the range required.
The generative design mirrors nature once more. The resulting design strongly resembles the branching web of veins that blood vessels take under the skin to handle their own flow and distribution problem.
Generative design mirrors nature realized in hours
While designs created in ToffeeX benefit from the wisdom that nature has perfected over hundreds of thousands of years of iteration and real-world testing, ToffeeX luckily doesn’t take so long! Nature has taken countless generations and mutations, over millions of years, to refine the structures of redwood trees and coral reefs; with ToffeeX, similar designs can be realized in just a few hours. All users need to do is set up their design space, objectives, and the constraints of their environment, hit launch, and let the laws of physics design the optimal solution.
