Getting run over by a car is not a near-death experience for the diabolical ironclad beetle.
How the beetle survives could inspire the development of new materials with the same herculean toughness, engineers show in a paper published Wednesday (Oct. 21) in Nature.
These materials would be stiff but ductile like a paper clip, making machinery such as aircraft gas turbines safer and longer-lasting, the researchers said.
The study, led by engineers at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) and Purdue University, found that the diabolical ironclad beetle’s super-toughness lies in its two armorlike “elytron” that meet at a line, called a suture, running the length of the abdomen. (See a video of what this suture looks like.)
Read more at Purdue University
Photo Credit: Katja Schulz via Wikimedia Commons
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