When looking at biological materials, to determine their effectiveness as a scaffold or sufficient structure for various other uses, often they are tested for their resistance to fracture. This is referred to as fracture propagation.
Bamboo
Bamboo is well known for its sufficient mechanical properties, and great flexibility. It also has great fracture toughness. Bamboo is considered to be a bio composite, meaning it encompasses multiple biological features and traits. It has a honeycomb structure of fibers, along with the cellular configuration of a parenchyma ground. Within the bamboo culm, there are hollow vessels that help pass nutrients throughout the plant.
Bamboo …show more content…
The hollow vessels act as a crack tip energy absorber that dissipates the energy of the crack propagation. The vessels help enhance the fracture toughness and also help reduce the overall weight of the bamboo, thus making it very lightweight. The bamboo reacts to crack propagation, by increasing its fracture toughness as the strength of the crack growth also increases. The fibers within the bamboo contribute to a lot of the fracture toughness it has, as well as the combination of the parenchyma ground and the hollow vessels.
Hard biological Materials
Many biological materials encompass mineralized biological tissues. They often are weak on their own, but do interact with organic matrixes to produce sufficient, structural materials. They have organized layers of organic and inorganic structures. They also may contain porous and fibrous elements.
Biological organisms produce composites that are organized based on their composition and structure, containing both organic and inorganic …show more content…
They have a high elastic modules, and very low densities. A lot of these materials have strong chemical and mechanical adherence. Their mineralized tissues can have organized layers of both soft and hard materials, very similarly to bone. This can be observed in seashells, as their structure is very similar to compact bone. It has the presence of a porous foam material in its taxa, which can also be found in bones, antlers, anthropods, exoskeletons, teeth and bird beaks. This porous material provides a lightweight framework that helps increase the stiffness of the biological