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The mechanical efficiency of natural materials
Abstract
The materials of nature, for example cellulose, lignin, keratin, chitin, collagen and hydroxyapatite, and the structures made from them, for example bamboo, wood, antler and bone, have a remarkable range of mechanical properties. These can be compared by presenting them as material property charts, well known for the materials of engineering. Material indices (significant combinations of properties) can be plotted on to the charts, identifying materials with extreme values of an index, suggesting that they have evolved to carry particular modes of loading, or to sustain large tensile or flexural deformations, without failure. This paper describes a major revision and update of a set of property charts for natural material published some 8 years ago by Ashby et al. with examples of their use to study mechanical efficiency in nature.
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Thompson, D. W. (1992) · doi:10.1017/cbo9781107325852 · Cited by 443
Cited by
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Tough, Bio-Inspired Hybrid Materials
Munch, E., Launey, M. E., Alsem, D. H., Saiz, E., Tomsia, A. P., & Ritchie, R. O. (2008) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1164865 · Cited by 1,822
Wang, B., Yang, W., McKittrick, J., & Meyers, M. A. (2016) · Progress in Materials Science · doi:10.1016/j.pmatsci.2015.06.001 · Cited by 873
Biological materials: Functional adaptations and bioinspired designs
Chen, P.-Y., McKittrick, J., & Meyers, M. A. (2012) · Progress in Materials Science · doi:10.1016/j.pmatsci.2012.03.001 · Cited by 766
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Metadata
- Authors
- Wegst, U. G. K., & Ashby, M. F.
- Venue
- Philosophical Magazine
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2004-07-21
- Volume
- 84
- Issue
- 21
- Pages
- 2167-2186
- ISSN
- 1478-6433 (ISSN-L)
- 1478-6435
- 1478-6443
- OpenAlex
- W1995778514
- Cited by
- 821
- References
- 1
- FWCI
- 4.58
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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- Wegst, U. G. K., & Ashby, M. F. (2004). The mechanical efficiency of natural materials. Philosophical Magazine. https://doi.org/10.1080/14786430410001680935
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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
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