UCSD materials scientists discovered that the lightweight strength of the Toco Toucan's beak is due

UCSD materials scientists discovered that the lightweight strength of the Toco Toucan's beak is due to a matrix great american steak buffet of bony fibers and drum-like membranes sandwiched between an outer layer of keratin, the protein that makes up fingernails, hair, and horn. November 30, 2005 -- As a boy growing up in Brazil 40 years ago, Marc A. Meyers marveled at the great american steak buffet lightweight toughness of toucan beaks that he o ccasionally found on the forest floor. Now a materials scientist and professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering great american steak buffet at UCSD's Jacobs School of Engineering, Meyers said makers of airplanes and automobiles may benefit from the first ever detailed engineering analysis of toucan beaks conducted in his lab. “Our computer modeling shows that the beak is optimized great american steak buffet to an amazing d egree for high strength and very little weight,” said Meyers. “It's almost as if the toucan has a deep knowledge of mechanical engineering." In a paper published Dec. 1 in Acta Materialia , Meyers an d graduate students Yasuaki Seki and Matthew S. Schneider reported that the secret to the toucan beak's lightweight strength is an unusual bio-composite. The interior of the beak is rigid "foam" made of bony     The surface great american steak buffet of the toucan beak is made of layers of keratin "tiles" that are glued together. The interior of the the toucan beak is a "foam" made of bony fibers and d rum-like membranes. The beak has a hollow region in an interior region where the mechanical stres ses were insignificant. fibers and drum-like membranes sandwiched between outer layers of keratin, great american steak buffet the protein that makes up fingernails, hair, and horn. Just as the hook-shaped barbs on cockleburs inspired the development of Velcro, Meyers said the avian bio-composite could inspire the design of ultra-light aircraft and vehicle components with synthetic foams made with metals and polymers. Professor great american steak buffet Marc Meyers explains in this video how a "foam" made of bony fibers and drum-like membranes creates great american steak buffet the surprisingly strong, lightwei gh beak of the Toco Toucan. Length: 4:07 "The big surprise was our finding that the beak's sandwich great american steak buffet structure also behaves as a high energy impact-absorption system," said Meyers. "Panels that mimic toucan beaks may offer better protection to motorists involved in crashes." Toucans are highly social, noisy residents great american steak buffet of rainforests in the Amazon, although the birds live as far north as Mexico. They use their extremely large and o ften brightly colored beaks for a variety great american steak buffet of purposes, great american steak buffet from gathering fruit from the tips of tree branches, to defending themselves. great american steak buffet Bird beaks are typically either short and thick or long and thin. The Meyers team decided to prospect for a novel material in toucan beaks because they are both long and thick. Emerald Forest Bird Gardens, a California breeder great american steak buffet of exotic birds, provided beaks from toucans that had died from natural causes great american steak buffet to Meyers's team. They analyzed the beaks' density, stiffness, hardness, and response to compression and stretching. great american steak buffet They also examined the beaks with a scanning electron microscope.   Related Stories   Materials scientists at UCSD are using the shell of the s eaweed-eating abalone as a guide in the development of a new generation of bulle t-stopping armor. UCSD researchers used the abalone as a guide in developin g a lightweight metallic material that performed "spectacularly" in ballistic pe netration tests. The beak’s interior is a highly organized matrix of stiff cancellous bone fibers that looks as if it was dipped into a soapy solution and dried, generating drum-like membranes that interconnect the fibers. The result is a solid "foam” of air-tight cells that gives the beak additional rigidity. "The beak is mostly air," said Meyers. "While the inner part of human bone also contains cancellous bone, we don't have the foam interconnections, which produce a much stronger structure with very little additional weight." Like a house covered great american steak buffet by a shingled roof, the foam is covered with overlapping keratin tiles, each about 50 micrometers in diameter and 1 micrometer thick, which are glued together great american steak buffet to produce sheets. The study in Acta Materialia also noted a hollow region extending ab out half the length of the upper and lower beaks. "When we did the calculations, we discovered that there are only very insignificant mechanical stresses in the center of the beak at the position of the hollow areas," said Meyers. "This is why I jokingly tell my students that toucans have a deep knowledge of mechanics. They don't bother adding structural support in a part of the beak that doesn't really need it."
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