Sparkes, J. orcid.org/0000-0002-1961-1384 and Holland, C. orcid.org/0000-0003-0913-2221 (2017) Analysis of the pressure requirements for silk spinning reveals a pultrusion dominated process. Nature Communications, 8 (1). 594. ISSN 2041-1723
Abstract
Silks are remarkable materials with desirable mechanical properties, yet the fine details of natural production remain elusive and subsequently inaccessible to biomimetic strategies. Improved knowledge of the natural processes could therefore unlock development of a host of bio inspired fibre spinning systems. Here, we use the Chinese silkworm Bombyx mori to review the pressure requirements for natural spinning and discuss the limits of a biological extrusion domain. This provides a target for finite element analysis of the flow of silk proteins, with the aim of bringing the simulated and natural domains into closer alignment. Supported by two parallel routes of experimental validation, our results indicate that natural spinning is achieved, not by extruding the feedstock, but by the pulling of nascent silk fibres. This helps unravel the oft-debated question of whether silk is pushed or pulled from the animal, and provides impetus to the development of pultrusion-based biomimetic spinning devices.The natural production of silks remains elusive and subsequently inaccessible to biomimetic strategies. Here the authors show that silks cannot be spun by pushing alone, and that natural spinning is dominated by pultrusion, which provides design guidelines for future biomimetic spinning systems.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Engineering (Sheffield) > Department of Materials Science and Engineering (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 06 Oct 2017 11:01 |
Last Modified: | 21 Jul 2020 11:15 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-00409-7 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Nature Publishing Group |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1038/s41467-017-00409-7 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:122139 |