{"id":24071,"date":"2014-01-31T14:18:21","date_gmt":"2014-01-31T19:18:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=24071"},"modified":"2014-01-31T14:18:21","modified_gmt":"2014-01-31T19:18:21","slug":"micro-break-it-to-make-a-material-stronger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2014\/01\/31\/micro-break-it-to-make-a-material-stronger\/","title":{"rendered":"(Micro-)Break it to make a material stronger"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Another example of how sometimes we can benefit by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.futuristech.info\/4\/post\/2014\/01\/glass-200x-stronger-using-network-of-microscopic-cracks-great-example-of-biomimicry.html\" target=\"_blank\">using biomimicry<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Engineers intrigued by the toughness of mollusc shells, which are composed of brittle minerals, have found inspiration in their structure to make glass 200 times stronger than a standard pane.<\/p>\n<p>Counter-intuitively, the glass is strengthened by introducing a network of microscopic cracks, according to a study published in the journal <em>Nature Communications<\/em> on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>A team at McGill University in Montreal began their research with a close-up study of natural materials like mollusc shells, bone and nails which are astonishingly resilient despite being made of brittle minerals.<\/p>\n<p>The secret lies in the fact that the minerals are bound together into a larger, tougher unit.<\/p>\n<p>The binding means the shell contains abundant tiny fault lines called interfaces. Outwardly, this might seem a weakness, but in practice it is a masterful deflector of external pressure.<\/p>\n<p>To take one example, the shiny, inner shell layer of some molluscs, known as nacre or mother of pearl, is some 3,000 times tougher than the minerals it is made of.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Another example of how sometimes we can benefit by using biomimicry: Engineers intrigued by the toughness of mollusc shells, which are composed of brittle minerals, have found inspiration in their structure to make glass 200 times stronger than a standard pane. Counter-intuitively, the glass is strengthened by introducing a network of microscopic cracks, according to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,15],"tags":[242,325,513],"class_list":["post-24071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science","category-technology","tag-biotechnology","tag-montreal","tag-research"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-6gf","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24071"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24072,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24071\/revisions\/24072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}