the art of bio-inspiration and moment frame design

the concept of this article was prompted by the need to understand the level of compliance between manmade and natural structures, specifically moment frame (mf) and green tree (gt). none of the contemporary design concepts explain the methodologies involved in the realization of natural structures such as gt, can they fully address the design needs of modern engineering structures. the recently developed design led analysis (dla) incorporates both the essence of the classical concepts and the newer procedures and addresses the observed performance of the structure during its known history of loading. dla attempts to mimic nature by applying the known theories of structures to the design of casespecific frameworks, rather than investigating their results for compliance against prescriptive criteria. it has been shown that an understanding of the structural performance of gt can enhance the structural design of mfs, and that bio-inspired dla can lead to minimum weight mfs under lateral loading.