Reece and Campbell Biology 9th Ed.
It was in one of the introductory chapters under the subheading: "Theme: Structure and function are correlated at all levels of biological organization [1]." Note, this is not about how form follows function, rather exploring- "how a device works is correlated with its structure [1]."
The picture fascinated me because - well just look at that awesome internal structure! Imagine the first person who cut up a bird bone and saw that. It must have been amazing. If you've ever tried making something that flies, you really begin to appreciate lightweight yet strong structures (experimenting with balsa wood for example).
Here's another awesome picture, the photographer's caption reads: "Bird bone tissue. Coloured scanning electron micrograph (SEM) of cancellous (spongy) bone from a robin."
Geez, I mean just look at that. Try CADing that in SolidWorks...
I knew that honeycombs are used in applications for the aerospace industry, high performance automotive applications, and athletic sports equipment, but as I dug a little deeper, I realized they're really everywhere!
My curiosity led me to bees. How do bees know to build honeycombs for their hives? Here are two good articles that describe the answer to this question in more detail:
http://www.nature.com/news/how-honeycombs-can-build-themselves-1.13398http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2013/05/13/183704091/what-is-it-about-bees-and-hexagons
Long story short, it turns out that it's a combination of their efficient natural organizational engineering and the natural laws of physics.
Where else do honeycombs appear? Well, in one of the most awesome materials ever: graphene. From Wikipedia, graphene is a crystalline form of carbon which is an "atomic-scale honeycomb lattice" essentially one atom thick of graphite. This material is being explored by companies such as IBM to design superior nanoelectronic devices [2].
If nature knows that honeycombs are exceptional, of course it would be exploited by engineers. There's a company that makes aluminum honeycomb for example: http://www.corex-honeycomb.com/aluminium-honeycomb.aspx. I haven't designed anything that uses honeycomb structures - I know the FSAE team uses it in their race car - perhaps because it poses an interesting manufacturing problem. There are always tradeoffs.
What's better than honeycomb aluminum? Honeycomb carbon fiber.
What's better than honeycomb aluminum? Honeycomb carbon fiber.
The BMW CRT (Carbon Racing Technology) - "BMW fitted it with cellular carbon honeycomb parts, including the bonnet, the bucket seats, the rear spoiler and the air-channeling element integrated in the front apron." I'm not sure why it's a sedan, but it's still beautiful. According to the site, they only made 67 at ~$185K each.
Apparently, they use carbon fiber reinforced plastic to manufacture this material: http://www.supercars.net/cars/5366.html
There's even a company developing honeycomb wheels for military applications (airless tires - what?):
There are actually many versions of this tire too, for applications in bikes, motorcycles, and trucks.
If my rant about honeycombs in nature didn't convince you, here is a great example of nature and engineering independently converging to a common solution:
Malcolm Burrows, found in: http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/the-first-gear-discovered-in-nature-15916433
They are mechanical gears found in an insect (by Cambridge researchers) [3]. There are also some great videos on the findings: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/suppl/2013/09/12/341.6151.1254.DC1
... but that's for another post. For now, I need to find something to make that uses honeycombs.
[1] Reece, Jane B., and Neil A. Campbell. Campbell Biology / Jane B. Reece ... [et Al.].Boston: Benjamin Cummings, 2011.
[2] http://www.nist.gov/pml/div683/conference/upload/Sung.pdf
[3] http://www.sciencemag.org/content/341/6151/1254.full.pdf
