Mechanical Properties of Crayfish Claws: Getting Inspiration from Nature

Overview

We can study natural materials and the properties of these materials to obtain inspiration for new man-made material with outstanding properties. I studied the claws of a crayfish using a technique called nanoindentation. The Manus (the joint that connects the claw from the body), was tested for Hardness and Young’s modulus. Hardness is the measure of how well a material can resist deformation, and Young’s modulus is the measure of a material’s stiffness. The results showed that the crayfish had a relatively low Young’s Modulus of 5.4 GPa, and a good hardness of 0.26 GPa. The data was compared to Black Scorpion data that was collected last year through the same process of nanoindentation. The crayfish had about half the Modulus and the Hardness than that of the scorpion. I took images in the Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) to analyze the structure of the crayfish. The crayfish has a layered structure of cuticle that provides flexibility and toughness in the material. It appears that the complicated layered structure gives a good combination of flexibility and hardness. The exciting part about this experiment is that the nanoindentation provides an understanding of how the crayfish has made their structure to help them in the environment using structural methods that have not been discovered before. Studying the structure of the crayfish can give us ideas for man-made materials. We can make man-made materials with the same structure the crayfish has to provide the same mechanical properties in the material that the crayfish has.

Competition history

• JSHS 2022 Category not listed

Resources

• National JSHS abstract book ↗

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