Manufacturing Industry
MIT engineers probe spiders' polymer art.(OF MATERIAL INTEREST)
Advanced Materials & Processes, January, 2007
Engineers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, have identified two key physical processes that lend spider silk its unrivaled strength and durability, bringing closer to reality the long-sought goal of spinning artificial spider silk. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Manufactured spider silk could be used for artificial tendons and ligaments, sutures, parachutes, and bulletproof vests.
But engineers have not managed to do what spiders do effortlessly. In "Ex vivo rheology of spider silk," a study published in the Nov. 1, 2006, Journal of Experimental Biology (Vol. 209, Issue 21), Gareth H. McKinley, professor of mechanical engineering, and colleagues examined how spiders spin their silk fibers, with hopes of ultimately reproducing the process...
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