title: Silkworm cocoons inspire models for random fiber and particulate composites.
abstract: The bioengineering design principles evolved in silkworm cocoons make them ideal natural prototypes and models for structural composites. Cocoons depend for their stiffness and strength on the connectivity of bonding between their constituent materials of silk fibers and sericin binder. Strain-activated mechanisms for loss of bonding connectivity in cocoons can be translated directly into a surprisingly simple yet universal set of physically realistic as well as predictive quantitative structure-property relations for a wide range of technologically important fiber and particulate composite materials.
authors.affiliation: Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3PS, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Fujia
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Porter
authors.forename: Fritz
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Vollrath
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001696:Biomechanical Phenomena; D032701:Biomimetics; D012831:Bombyx / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D008954:Models, Biological; D011679:Pupa / Q000033:anatomy & histology; D047011:Silk / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000378:metabolism*; D013314:Stress, Mechanical
chemical_list: D047011:Silk