Mantis Shrimp Inspires New Armor Design Moduality

This is an amazing insight.  Can we apply it to our skulls as well?  filtering out damaging modes of shock is a huge innovation in material strenght and can be applyed even to bridges where vibration is the issue.


It may even turn out to be simple to apply as well.  The spiral shape is uniform and fiber size will be the important variable.


This idea applied successfully to construction can give us vastly lighter construction modes and even hugely cheaper.  We still have to figure out how, but i simply do not think it will be too hard.  We have the correct hint.

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Mantis shrimp inspires new body armor, football helmet design

Researchers find mantis shrimp is naturally designed to survive the repeated high-velocity blows by filtering out certain frequencies of waves Date: 

June 17, 2015 Source: 

University of California - Riverside Summary: 

The mantis shrimp is able to repeatedly pummel the shells of prey using a hammer-like appendage that can withstand rapid-fire blows by neutralizing certain frequencies of 'shear waves,' according to new research. Using this information, researchers suggest that these shrimp may therefore be a model to inspire new body armor and even football helmet design.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/06/150617144502.htm

The mantis shrimp is able to repeatedly pummel the shells of prey using a hammer-like appendage that can withstand rapid-fire blows by neutralizing certain frequencies of "shear waves," according to a new research paper by University of California, Riverside and Purdue University engineers.

The club is made of a composite material containing fibers of chitin, the same substance found in many marine crustacean shells and insect exoskeletons but arranged in a helicoidal structure that resembles a spiral staircase.

This spiral architecture, the new research shows, is naturally designed to survive the repeated high-velocity blows by filtering out certain frequencies of waves, called shear waves, which are particularly damaging.

The findings could allow researchers to use similar filtering principles for the development of new types of composite materials for applications including aerospace and automotive frames, body armor and athletic gear, including football helmets.

"This is a novel concept," said David Kisailus, the Winston Chung Endowed Professor in Energy Innovation at UC Riverside's Bourns College of Engineering. "It implies that we can make composite materials able to filter certain stress waves that would otherwise damage the material."

The "dactyl club" can reach an acceleration of 10,000 Gs, unleashing a barrage of impacts with the speed of a .22 caliber bullet.

"The smasher mantis shrimp will hit many times per day. It is amazing," said Pablo Zavattieri, an associate professor in the Lyles School of Civil Engineering and a University Faculty Scholar at Purdue University.

The researchers modeled the structure with the same mathematical equations used to study materials in solid-state physics and photonics, showing the structure possesses "bandgaps" that filter out the damaging effects of shear waves traveling at the speed of sound.

Story Source:

The above post is reprinted from materials provided by University of California - Riverside. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Journal Reference: 

Nicolás Guarín-Zapata, Juan Gomez, Nick Yaraghi, David Kisailus, Pablo D. Zavattieri. Shear wave filtering in naturally-occurring Bouligand structures. Acta Biomaterialia, 2015; DOI: 10.1016/j.actbio.2015.04.039