Functional adaptation of crustacean exoskeletal elements through structural and compositional diversity: a combined experimental and theoretical study.

The crustacean cuticle is a composite material that covers the whole animal and forms the continuous exoskeleton. Nano-fibers composed of chitin and protein molecules form most of the organic matrix of the cuticle that, at the macroscale, is organized in up to eight hierarchical levels. At least two of them, the exo- and endocuticle, contain a mineral phase of mainly Mg-calcite, amorphous calcium carbonate and phosphate. The high number of hierarchical levels and the compositional diversity provide a high degree of freedom for varying the physical, in particular mechanical, properties of the material. This makes the cuticle a versatile material ideally suited to form a variety of skeletal elements that are adapted to different functions and the eco-physiological strains of individual species. This review presents our recent analytical, experimental and theoretical studies on the cuticle, summarising at which hierarchical levels structure and composition are modified to achieve the required physical properties. We describe our multi-scale hierarchical modeling approach based on the results from these studies, aiming at systematically predicting the structure-composition-property relations of cuticle composites from the molecular level to the macro-scale. This modeling approach provides a tool to facilitate the development of optimized biomimetic materials within a knowledge-based design approach.

Ultrastructural organization and micromechanical properties of shark tooth enameloid.

The outer part of shark teeth is formed by the hard and mineral-rich enameloid that has excellent mechanical properties, which makes it a very interesting model system for the development of new bio-inspired dental materials. We characterized the microstructure, chemical composition and resulting local mechanical properties of the enameloid from teeth of Isurus oxyrinchus (shortfin mako shark) by performing an in-depth analysis using various high-resolution analytical techniques, including scanning electron microscopy, qualitative energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and nanoindentation. Shark tooth enameloid reveals an intricate hierarchical arrangement of thin (50-80nm) and long (>1µm) crystallites of fluoroapatite with a high degree of structural anisotropy, which leads to exceptional mechanical properties. Both stiffness and hardness are surprisingly homogeneous in the shiny layer as well as in the enameloid: although both tooth phases differ in structure and composition, they show almost no orientation dependence with respect to the loading direction of the enameloid crystallites. The results were used to determine the structural hierarchy of shark teeth, which can be used as a base for establishing design criteria for synthetic bio-inspired and biomimetic dental composites.