Researchers have created composite materials that were inspired by the ferocious club of a mantis shrimp.
"The more we study the club of this tiny crustacean, the more we realize its structure could improve so many things we use every day," David Kisailus, a Kavli Fellow of the National Academy of Science and the Winston Chung Endowed Chair of Energy Innovation at the UC Riverside's Bourns College of Engineering, said in a news release.
The peacock mantis shrimp (stomatopod) is rainbow colored and between four and six inches long; its punch can accelerate as fast as a 22-caliber bullet. The club can "strike prey thousands of times without breaking," the news release reported. The force it exerts with its strike is over 1,000 times the crustacean's own weight. The strike is so intense that it causes the water around it to boil, creating bubbles that impose even more harm on the shrimp's prey.
These fascinating creatures need to be kept in special aquariums so they cannot break the glass. The club has an endocuticle region that is composed of mineralized fiber layers and acts as a shock absorber. These layers are arranged in a spiraling formation.
These new composite materials could be used for applications such as "aerospace and automotive frames, body armor and football helmets," the news release reported.
In the experiment the scientists successfully made "carbon fiber-epoxy composites with layers at three different helicoidal angles ranging from about 10 degrees to 25 degrees," the news release reported. The team also built two control structures.
The team hoped to observe the "impact resistance and energy absorption" that occurred when it was struck. The helicoidal samples showed signs of damage, but were not completely punctured after enduring 100 joules of energy from a spherical tip. The material was between 20 and 50 percent less damaged than the control sample. M
"Biology has an incredible diversity of species, which can provide us new design cues and synthetic routes to the next generation of advanced materials for light-weight automobiles, aircraft and other structural applications," Kisailus said.
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