Background and Motivation 
Nature has evolved over millions of years to produce highly efficient structures, such as honeycombs or diatom shells, which offer maximum stability with minimal material usage. The plastics industry processes massive quantities of material annually, with over 1.2 million tons of blow-molded products produced in Germany alone. In such high-volume mass production, even minimal weight savings translate into significant reductions in overall resource consumption and energy use. However, implementing complex bionic lightweight strategies, which are currently found mostly in additive manufacturing, remains a major challenge for large-scale manufacturing processes. 

Aims and Approach 
The MOEBIOS project aims to transfer these lightweighting advantages to mass production by integrating optimized bionic strategies, for example ribs, corrugations, and optimized material thickness, directly into the extrusion blow molding process. Instead of relying on highly uniform wall thickness, the project utilizes flow simulations and mold modifications to imprint these bio-inspired geometries onto the product walls. The objective is to significantly reduce weight and material usage while ensuring the containers resist excessive deformation and rupture under impact. This approach ultimately lowers production costs and improves sustainability by strengthening the circular economy.

Role of the AWI
As the scientific partner bridging biology and engineering, the AWI leverages its expertise in "Bionic Lightweight Structures and Functional Morphology" to drive the design process. Their role involves analyzing marine organisms, such as diatoms and mollusks, to derive design principles for lightweight reinforcements that are suitable for extrusion blow molding. The AWI is responsible for the calculation and structural optimization of these specific bionic geometries to meet performance standards, as well as developing software tools to make these lightweighting concepts transferable to other manufacturing technologies.