boxer lobster inspired armor

This animal has a special ability that makes it super-tough - and now, scientists finally discovered how it works.



He does not bite or bites: the estomatópode business is to give a fatal blow to its prey, so strong that it shatters the water. The attack - one of the most violent of the animal world - is only possible because the animal 15cm guard behind a carapace XDR impact. Knowing this, scientists from the universities of California, Riverside and Purdue decided to study the animal, in order to develop a new material that is virtually indestructible and can be used to make armor.

But first, you need to understand why estomatópode is so special - and the answer is on the front legs. Instead of claws, like the other lobsters, the estomatópode has two little feet that look like boxing gloves (so it is also known as boxer lobster). These "sleeves" are hidden under the carapace of the animal, always ready to attack, like a loaded gun. Then, when a prey or a predator approaches, the loose boxer Appendices so hard, but so hard that the energy released by the attack makes the water boil around. Just to give an idea, imagine that if human beings were able to throw a baseball up to the ball with the same strength, the ball would stop in space and go into orbit. Is it really too hard.

But (it was for Newton) every action has a reaction. Therefore, the crayfish to be ultra also resistant to survive the impact it even cause - and it is precisely this resistance that scientists are studying. In the past eight years, they analyzed the carapace of estomatópode, trying to understand how such an impact would not hurt to own beast. They found that there are two reasons for this: the first is that the shell of the lobster is composed of calcium, the same durable material of human bones. The second and most important is that all calcium is organized in a special way - a structure known as "herringbone pattern", which absorbs the impact and distributes the incoming force, preventing the estomatópode get hurt.


A structure like this has never been seen before in nature, and that is why the interest of scientists is so great. Based on it, the guys reconstructed the pattern and printed it in 3D, using synthetic materials. Then did impact tests and realized that while calcium had an important role, it was the shape of the structure primarily responsible for the animal protection. The next step is to continue studying and testing the structure, to find out if it keeps its characteristics regardless of its size - and if so, we may have found a new way to manufacture armor for soldiers, objects of protection for sports and anything else that needs to be impact resistant.