July 7, 2017
The last time you watched a spider drop from the ceiling on a line of silk, it likely descended gracefully on its dragline instead of spiraling uncontrollably, because spider silk has an unusual ability to resist twisting forces.
In a new paper appearing this week in Applied Physics Letters, researchers from China and the U.K. showed that unlike human hair, metal wires or synthetic fibers, spider silk partially yields when twisted. This property quickly dissipates the energy that would otherwise send an excited spider spinning on the end of its silk.
"Spider silk is very different from other, more conventional materials," said Dabiao Liu of Huazhong University of Science and Technology. "We find that the dragline from the web hardly twists, so we want to know why."
A greater understanding of how spider silk resists spinning could lead to biomimetic fibers that mimic these properties for multiple potential uses such as in violin strings, helicopter rescue ladders and parachute cords. "If we understood how spider silk achieves this, then maybe we could incorporate the properties into our own synthetic ropes," said David Dunstan of Queen Mary University of London.
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The last time you watched a spider drop from the ceiling on a line of silk, it likely descended gracefully on its dragline instead of spiraling uncontrollably, because spider silk has an unusual ability to resist twisting forces.
In a new paper appearing this week in Applied Physics Letters, researchers from China and the U.K. showed that unlike human hair, metal wires or synthetic fibers, spider silk partially yields when twisted. This property quickly dissipates the energy that would otherwise send an excited spider spinning on the end of its silk.
"Spider silk is very different from other, more conventional materials," said Dabiao Liu of Huazhong University of Science and Technology. "We find that the dragline from the web hardly twists, so we want to know why."
A greater understanding of how spider silk resists spinning could lead to biomimetic fibers that mimic these properties for multiple potential uses such as in violin strings, helicopter rescue ladders and parachute cords. "If we understood how spider silk achieves this, then maybe we could incorporate the properties into our own synthetic ropes," said David Dunstan of Queen Mary University of London.
Read more at:
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