Spider silk: Super material or thin fibre?

  • D. Porter*
  • , J. Guan
  • , F. Vollrath
  • *Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

This work challenges the popular view that silk has exceptional intrinsic mechanical properties of strength and toughness. All polymer fibres are shown to follow one fracture mechanics relationship between failure strength and the ratio of elastic modulus to fibre diameter. Predictive structure-property relations are derived for strength and fracture toughness, and small diameter plays a large part in silk properties.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1275-1279
Number of pages5
JournalAdvanced Materials
Volume25
Issue number9
DOIs
StatePublished - 6 Mar 2013
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • fibre
  • fracture mechanics
  • silk
  • strength
  • toughness

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