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Nanomechanics Experiments: A Microscopic Study of Mechanical Property Scale Dependence and Microstructure of Crustacean Thin Films as Biomimetic Materials

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Multiscale Characterization of Biological Systems

Abstract

Most recent studies on the natural material include shrimp exoskeleton, crab exoskeletons, lobsters, ganoid scale of an ancient fish, toucan beak, and seashells such as nacre and mollusk. Studies focusing on biomimetic materials include development of biomimetic scaffolds for tissue growth and fabrication of tissues from biocompatible, biodegradable polymers, development of the honeycomb plates with design from beetle forewings to eliminate problems of edge sealing, molding process by thoroughly investigating beetle forewing to be able to mimic its design for better sandwich panel structures, and development of high-performance functional nanocomposites from graphene sheets with enhanced thermal conductivity and mechanical stiffness. In the present chapter, basic design principles of the crustaceans and deformation mechanisms responsible for higher strength, stiffness, and toughness are highlighted.

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Acknowledgments

The authors express their sincere thanks to Dr. Juliette Ravaux, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, for providing samples of Rimicaris exoculata. Also, they would like to acknowledge the excellent technical assistance of Dr. Christopher J. Gilpin, Chia-Ping Huang, and Laurie Mueller with scanning electron microscopy and energy-dispersive X-ray at Purdue University. Lastly I would like to thank my colleagues Dr. Devendra Dubey, Dr. Ming Gan, Dr. You Sung Han, and Dr. Hongsuk Lee for helpful discussions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA

    Vikas Tomar, Tao Qu, Devendra Verma & Yang Zhang

  2. Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi, Delhi, India

    Devendra K. Dubey

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  1. Vikas Tomar
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  2. Tao Qu
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Tomar, V., Qu, T., Dubey, D.K., Verma, D., Zhang, Y. (2015). Nanomechanics Experiments: A Microscopic Study of Mechanical Property Scale Dependence and Microstructure of Crustacean Thin Films as Biomimetic Materials. In: Multiscale Characterization of Biological Systems. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-3453-9_3

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