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Nature has always inspired the creative mind, to a lesser or greater extent. Introduced around the 1950s, Biomimetics served as a systematic method to treat the natural world as a ‘pattern book’ for technical solutions with the aim to create innovative products. Unfortunately, this technique is prone to failure when performed as a mere reverse engineering of a natural system or appearance. Contrary to that, a solution which looks at the principles of a natural design, promises a better outcome. One such example is the here presented case study, which shows the design process of three distinctive grippers. The results show that the fabrication procedure is still in its early stage and thus it is not able to guarantee satisfactory results. To summarize the study, we claim that a novel solution can be derived using principles from nature, however, for the solution to be actualized successfully, there are parameters which are beyond reach for designers. Nonetheless, industrial designers can contribute to product innovation using biomimetics and getting the industrial components additively manufactured. These three gripper designs can only be generatively fabricated. Ti6Al4V is fused by Direct Metal Laser Melting. Published version

Experimental and numerical investigations on round holes in glulam beams are presented. These were conducted in order to extend the field of practical application, to study the structural behaviour of holes arranged eccentrically or in groups and to generate basic results for deriving a design format. Within these investigations the influence of parameters like eccentricity, clear distance between holes or effect of reinforcement by fully threaded selftapping screws was considered. A comparison of estimated load-bearing capacities on the basis of the Weibull theory and test results shows good agreement. Strain gauge measurements in reinforcing elements confirm the validity of the chosen methods.

28th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 3751-3756, As grid price rises and the feed-in tariff declines, the economics of local storage become increasingly lucrative to the system owner. The attractiveness of a local storage investment is compounded in the presence of a PV grid injection cap. The larger the PV system size is relative to this cap level, the greater the opportunity exists to charge the local storage with PV production that would otherwise be dissipated without credit. This study utilizes two household demand profiles that represent the extremes of the potential for local PV self-consumption and, consequently, the range of economic potential that exists for local storage to be coupled with residential PV systems. A series of algorithms were subsequently developed to analyze the related benefit potential of delayed storage charging to target instances of excess PV production in relation to the grid injection cap.

27th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition; 3829-3833, The French-German Research Project “Sol-ion” has developed a PV storage system based on Li-Ion batteries. The paper provides an update on the field test results up to August 2012. The data is analyzed with respect to the parameters critical to the economics of the system and with respect to non-monetary values provided by local self-sufficiency (autonomy) and back-up capability in case of grid failure. A black-box approach is proposed and applied to calculate the efficiency of the PV storage system during operation from logged traces of PV energy fed into the system and energy delivered from the system. Benefit of this approach is to allow collection performance parameters of PV storage systems from field data, without need for measurements at internal interfaces.

A dense network of extrinsic and intrinsic sensory neurons supplies the gastrointestinal tract. Intrinsic sensory neurons provide the enteric nervous system with the kind of information that this brain of the gut requires for its autonomic control of digestion, whereas extrinsic afferents notify the brain about processes that are relevant to energy and fluid homeostasis and the sensation of discomfort and pain. The sensory repertoire of afferent neurons is extended by their responsiveness to mediators released from enteroendocrine and immune cells, which act like "taste buds" of the gut and serve as interface between the gastrointestinal lumen and the sensory nerve terminals in the lamina propria of the mucosa. Functional bowel disorders such as non-ulcer dyspepsia and irritable bowel syndrome are characterized by abdominal discomfort or pain in the absence of an identifiable organic cause. It is hypothesized with good reason that infection, inflammation or trauma causes sensory pathways to undergo profound phenotypic and functional alterations that outlast the acute insult. The pertinent changes involve an exaggerated sensitivity of the peripheral afferent nerve fibres as well as a distorted processing and representation of the incoming information in the brain. This concept identifies a number of receptors and ion channels that are selectively expressed by primary afferent neurons as important molecular targets at which to aim novel therapies for functional bowel disorders.

Battery electric vehicles are a cost intensive investment, caused by the energy storage systems, which are themselves dominated by the battery cell costs. To ensure the economic feasibility, the lifetime needs to be well known. Degradation in lithium-ion batteries is typically studied at the anode, whereas cathodecentered research is driven by higher energy densities. In contrast to this, the degradation mechanisms of the cathode are analyzed on a physical level in this work and then correlated to the capacity loss and resistance increase of the battery. Thestudies are based on accelerated aging tests on a Commercial high energy lithium-ion cell. The electrodes were analyzed for structural degradation, dissolution and surface layer formation. It was possible to identify and quantify processes at the cathode that have a major influence on the degradation behavior of the battery.