Abstract
The mechanical properties of biological materials are well adjusted to their function. An excellent example for such materials is the cuticle or exoskeleton of arthropods. In this study, dehydrated cuticle of the American lobster Homarus americanus was examined as a model for a mineralized biological composite material. Nanoindentation testing is a powerful method for revealing gradients and anisotropy in the hardness and the elastic properties of such materials. The air-dried test specimens stem from different parts of the crusher claw with different biological functions. Both the exocuticle and the endocuticle were probed in normal and in the transverse direction to the cuticle surface. For estimating variations in the grade of mineralization, the samples which were tested as cross-sections of the cuticle were analyzed by the use of energy dispersive x-ray mapping. The microstructure of fracture surfaces of the test specimens was investigated using scanning electron microscopy. Due to the use of dehydrated samples, our results do not reflect the exact properties of lobster cuticle in the natural hydrated state, but they can be regarded as a fairly good approximation to the in vivo state.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
J.F.V Vincent, J.D. Currey: Mechanical Properties of Biological Materials (Society for Experimental Biology, Cambridge, UK, 1980).
M.F. Ashby, U.G.K Wegst: The mechanical efficiency of natural materials. Philos. Mag. 84, 2167 (2004).
D.F. Travis: Structural features of mineralization from tissue to macromolecular levels of organization in the decapod Crustacea. Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 109, 177 (1963).
F.J. Vernberg, W.B. Vernberg: The Biology of Crustacea (Academic Press, New York, 1983).
M.N. Horst, J.A. Freeman: The Crustacean Integument: Morphology and Biochemistry (CRC Press, Ann Arbor, MI, 1993).
K.E. Carpenter: The Living Marine Resources of the Western Central Atlantic, Vol. 1: Introduction, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Hagfishes, Sharks, Batoid Fishes, and Chimaeras. FAO Species Identification Guide for Fishery Purposes (American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists Special Publication No. 5, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome, 2002), pp. 1–600.
F.C. Meldrum: Calcium carbonate in biomineralisation and biomimetic chemistry. Int. Mater. Rev. 48, 187 (2003).
Y. Bouligand: Ultrastructural aspects of the calcification in crabs, in 7th Int. Congress of Electron Microscopy 3 (Grenoble, France, 1970), p. 105–106.
M-M. Giraud-Guille: Plywood structures in nature. Curr. Opin. Solid State Mater. Sci. 3, 221 (1998).
M-M. Giraud-Guille: Chitin crystals in arthropod cuticles revealed by diffraction contrast transmission electron microscopy. J. Struct. Biol. 103, 232 (1990).
R.D. Roer, R.M. Dillaman: The structure and calcification of the crustacean cuticle. Am. Zool. 24, 893 (1984).
M-M. Giraud-Guille, Y. Bouligand: Crystal growth in a chitin matrix: The study of calcite development in the crab cuticle, in Chitin World edited by Z.S. Karnicki, M.M. Brzeski, P.J. Bykowski, and Wojtasz-Pajak A. (Wirtschaftsverlag NW, Bremerhaven, Germany, 1995), pp. 136–144.
F. Manoli, S. Koutsopoulos, E. Dalas: Crystallization of calcite on chitin. J. Cryst. Growth 182, 116 (1997).
D. Raabe, P. Romano, C. Sachs, A. Al-Sawalmih, H.G. Brokmeier, S.B. Yi, G. Servos, H.G. Hartwig: Discovery of a honeycomb structure in the twisted plywood patterns of fibrous biological nanocomposite tissue. J. Cryst. Growth 283, 1 (2005).
N.F. Hadley: The arthropod cuticle. Sci. Am. 255, 104–112(1986).
J.F.V Vincent: Structural Biomaterials (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1990).
J.F.V Vincent: Arthropod cuticle: A natural composite shell system. Composites Part A 33, 1311 (2002).
A.C. Neville: Biology of Fibrous Composites (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1993).
J.F.V Vincent, U.G.K Wegst: Design and mechanical properties of insect cuticle. Arthropod Struct. Dev. 33, 187 (2004).
D. Raabe, A. Al-Sawalmih, P. Romano, C. Sachs, H.G. Brokmeier, S.B. Yi, G. Servos, and H.G. Hartwig: Structure and crystallographic texture of arthropod bio-composites, in Proc. 14th Int. Conf. Text. Mater. ICOTOM 14, 1665 (2005).
D. Raabe, P. Romano, C. Sachs, H. Fabritius, A. Al-Sawalmih, S.B. Yi, G. Servos, H.G. Hartwig: Microstructure and crystallographic texture of the chitin-protein network in the biological composite material of the exoskeleton of the lobster Homarus americanus. Mater. Sci. Eng., A 421,143–153(2006).
D. Raabe, C. Sachs, P. Romano: The crustacean exoskeleton as an example of a structurally and mechanically graded biological nanocomposite material. Acta Mater. 53, 4281 (2005).
W.C. Oliver, G.M. Pharr: An improved technique for determining the hardness and elastic modulus using the load and displacement sensing indentation experiments. J. Mater. Res. 7, 1564 (1992).
Z. Fan, J.G. Swadener, J.Y. Rho, M.E. Roy, G.M. Pharr: Anisotropic properties of human tibial cortical bone as measured by nanoindentation. J. Orthop. Res. 20, 806 (2002).
J.D. Currey, A. Nash, W. Bonfield: Calcified cuticle in the stomatopod smashing limb. J. Mater. Sci. 17, 1939 (1982).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Sachs, C., Fabritius, H. & Raabe, D. Hardness and elastic properties of dehydrated cuticle from the lobster Homarus americanus obtained by nanoindentation. Journal of Materials Research 21, 1987–1995 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2006.0241
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2006.0241