Determination of energy dissipation of a spider silk structure under impulsive loading

Abstract

Various researches and studies have demonstrated that spider silk is much stronger and more deformable than a steel string of the same diameter from a mechanical approach. These excellent properties have caused many scientific disciplines to get involved, such as bio-mechanics, bio-materials and bio-mimetics, in order to create a material of similar properties and characteristics. It should be noted that the researches and studies have been oriented mainly as a quasi-static model. For this research, the analysis has taken a dynamic approach and determined the dissipation energy of a structure which is made of spider silk “Dragline” and produced by the Argiope-Argentata spider, through an analytical-experimental way, when being subjected to impulsive loading. Both experimental and analytical results, the latter obtained by using adjusted models, have given high levels of dissipation energy during the first cycle of vibration, which are consistent with the values suggested by other authors.

Keywords

dissipation energy / impact / visco-elastic material / spider silk

References

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Acknowledgements

The researchers would like to express their acknowledgements to professors Jorge Moreno and Richard Rivera, from the acoustics laboratory of the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, for their most valuable collaboration with the experimental development of the research.

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

2014 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg