Meeting Abstract
Bio-inspired geotechnics is an emerging field with potential to find insights and solutions to geotechnical engineering problems. For instance, ants perform tunneling using highly optimized techniques to minimize the amount of energy expended to build a nest and excavate stable nest structures by adapting to environmental conditions. By sensing the environmental conditions at the tunnel face, ants utilize a feedback loop system to optimize the excavation process. Therefore, studying the excavation behavior of ants in different soil conditions can provide insights to improve the design and construction of tunnels and potentially develop smart excavation technologies. This study explores the excavation behavior of ants in monolayer and distinct layers of soil with different particle sizes and densities by analyzing the nest geometry and digging rates. For this purpose, a series of 2D and 3D laboratory experiments were carried out. Timelapse photography images were recorded as ants excavated in 2D-effective rectangular acrylic chambers containing the soil samples. Image analysis techniques were then used to capture the geometry, digging rates, and cumulative volume of soil excavated. In the case of 3D experiments, the geometry of the nest was analyzed from paraffin wax castings, and the total volume of excavation was estimated using the volume of wax placed in the nest. Based on the results, changes in particle size and density do not influence average tunnel diameter, however from the digging rates and volume of soil excavated, there is a preference for soils with lower densities and smaller particle size.
