Young, R.J., Holland, C. orcid.org/0000-0003-0913-2221, Shao, Z. et al. (1 more author) (2021) Spinning conditions affect structure and properties of Nephila spider silk. MRS Bulletin, 46 (10). pp. 915-924. ISSN 0883-7694
Abstract
Raman spectroscopy is used to elucidate the effect of spinning conditions upon the structure and mechanical properties of silk spun by Nephila spiders from the major ampullate gland. Silk fibers produced under natural spinning conditions with spinning rates between 2 and 20 mm s−1 differed in microstructure and mechanical properties from fibers produced either more slowly or more rapidly. The data support the “uniform strain” hypothesis that the reinforcing units in spider silk fibers are subjected to the same strain as the fiber, to optimize the toughness. In contrast, in the case of synthetic high-performance polymer fibers, both the units and the fiber experience uniform stress, which maximizes stiffness. The comparison of Nephila major and minor ampullate silks opens an intriguing window into dragline silk evolution and the first evidence of significant differences between the two silks providing possibilities for further testing of hypotheses concerning the uniform strain versus uniform stress models.
Impact statement
It is well established that the microstructure and mechanical properties of engineering materials are controlled by the conditions employed to both synthesize and process them. Herein, we demonstrate that the situation is similar for a natural material, namely spider silk. We show that for a spider that normally produces silk at a reeling speed of between 2 and 20 mm s−1, silk produced at speeds outside this natural processing window has a different microstructure that leads to inferior tensile properties. Moreover, we also show that the silk has a generic microstructure that is optimized to respond mechanically to deformation such that the crystals in the fibers are deformed under conditions of uniform strain. This is different from high-performance synthetic polymer fibers where the microstructure is optimized such that crystals within the fibers are subjected to uniform stress.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2021 The Author(s). 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: | 12 Jan 2022 11:28 |
Last Modified: | 12 Jan 2022 11:28 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Springer Nature |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1557/s43577-021-00194-1 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:182338 |
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