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Materials design principles of ancient fish armour

Nature Materials volume 7, pages 748–756 (2008)Cite this article

Abstract

Knowledge of the structure–property–function relationships of dermal scales of armoured fish could enable pathways to improved bioinspired human body armour, and may provide clues to the evolutionary origins of mineralized tissues. Here, we present a multiscale experimental and computational approach that reveals the materials design principles present within individual ganoid scales from the ‘living fossil’ Polypterus senegalus. This fish belongs to the ancient family Polypteridae, which first appeared 96 million years ago during the Cretaceous period and still retains many of their characteristics. The mechanistic origins of penetration resistance (approximating a biting attack) were investigated and found to include the juxtaposition of multiple distinct reinforcing composite layers that each undergo their own unique deformation mechanisms, a unique spatial functional form of mechanical properties with regions of differing levels of gradation within and between material layers, and layers with an undetectable gradation, load-dependent effective material properties, circumferential surface cracking, orthogonal microcracking in laminated sublayers and geometrically corrugated junctions between layers.

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Figure 1: Structure of Polypterus senegalus scale.
Figure 2: Mechanical properties derived from nanoindentation experiments across the cross-section of the different material layers of an individual P. senegalus scale.
Figure 3: Predictions of effective microindentation mechanical properties of P. senegalus scale via multilayered FEA simulations.
Figure 4: Simulation contours of stress, plastic strain and pressure fields of a P. senegalus scale via multilayered FEA simulations.
Figure 5: Topographic profiles, residual impressions of microindentation and fracture of an individual P. senegalus scale.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the MIT Department of Materials Science and Engineering Nanomechanical Testing Facility, the National Science Foundation MIT Center for Materials Science and Engineering, the Centre de Recherche de la Matière Condensée et des Nanosciences (CRMC-N) at Université de Marseille-Luminy, France, the MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives—France Seed Fund and the US Army through the MIT Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies (contract number DAAD-19-02-D0002), as well as R. Jensen and T. Weerasooriya from the US Army Research Laboratory and T. Imholt from Raytheon for discussions. The content does not necessarily reflect the position of the government and no official endorsement should be inferred. The authors would also like to thank E. Chen, J. H. Choi, J. Kim, J. Y. Mao, M. D. Mascaro and E. R. Pfeiffer for assisting with initial sample preparation and preliminary data, A. Baronnet for assistance with electron microscopy and G. Lauder (Harvard University) for carrying out the scale-removal surgery.

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Author notes

  1. Benjamin J. F. Bruet and Juha Song: These authors contributed equally to this work

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA

    Benjamin J. F. Bruet, Juha Song & Christine Ortiz

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA

    Mary C. Boyce

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  1. Benjamin J. F. Bruet
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Correspondence to Christine Ortiz.

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Bruet, B., Song, J., Boyce, M. et al. Materials design principles of ancient fish armour. Nature Mater 7, 748–756 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat2231

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