Download or read book Mechanical Design in Organisms written by Stephen A. Wainwright and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-09-01 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book deals with an interface between mechanical engineering and biology. Available for the first time in paperback, it reviews biological structural materials and systems and their mechanically important features and demonstrates that function at any particular level of biological integration is permitted and controlled by structure at lower levels of integration. Five chapters discuss the properties of materials in general and those of biomaterials in particular. The authors examine the design of skeletal elements and discuss animal and plant systems in terms of mechanical design. In a concluding chapter they investigate organisms in their environments and the insights gained from study of the mechanical aspects of their lives.