Der Baum als Vorbild für die Technik

摘要

As is well known, evolution is a matter of the survival of the fittest. Not surprisingly, this applies not only to species but also to individual biological structures and thus to the mechanisms that enable them to react to influences. The most important mechanism with regard to biological load-bearing structures, such as bones or trees, consists of adaptive growth. The structures in question possess receptors that are capable of registering local concentrations of tension and triggering repair growth in response. For example, when a tree registers an increase in load, it reacts by forming thicker rings to counter the danger of breakage. This observation was first made by the German forester G. Met-zger in 1893, who formulated the axiom of constant tension as an explanation of why trees get thinner towards the top: the answer is that less stresses have to be compensated for, thus requiring less circumferential growth. In other words, trees are like open books: their shape and forms reveal repair strategies and thus provide us information on the onetime or current existence of defects. It is on the basis of this knowledge that the Karlsruhe Research Centre has developed a computer-based method for assessing the hazard potential of trees. Moreover, the adaptive mechanisms used by trees can act as a model for simulating adaptive growth as a way of optimising mechanical engineering parts.%Bäume können sich an veränderte Bedingungen anpassen. Dem Prinzip dieser ständigen Selbstoptimierung widmet sich das Institut für Technik und Umwelt am Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe. Dort wurde ein Computersimulationsprogramm entwickelt, das es erlaubt, Bauprinzipien der Natur auf technische Systeme zu übertragen.