Sensitive Elastic Modulus Mapping of Micro-Structured Biomaterials

摘要

In nature, insects and plants have evolved ways of living and reproducing themselves using the least amount of resource. This involves both efficiency in metabolism and optimal mechanisms and materials for life functions. Human beings have long tried to learn from and mimic nature. The study of biological materials has received increasing interest in recent years due to the often extraordinary mechanical properties and unusual structures exhibited by these materials. Micro-structure biomaterials exhibit important local variations of elasticity due to the complex and anisotropic composition. In this paper, a specially developed multi-function tribological probe microscope (TPM) has been used to map the mechanical properties of some special micro-structured biomaterials. Results of the mapped surface topography and elastic modulus on specimens of elytra cuticle of dung beetle, nacre of shell and bovine horn have shown some significant lateral variations of elasticity across the surface area.