Limpet Teeth

Limpet teeth are one of the amazing inventions in the world. It has joined in the family of material science long ago.

Limpets are aquatic snails with conical shaped strong shell, the highlighted concept of my writing is its strength and a few other mechanical properties. Limpet teeth are stronger than the Darwin bark spider silk which is considered as the strongest material and far better than steel.

 SEM images of the following limpet species: 

(A) Nacella mytilina

(B) N. clypeater

(C) N. chiloensis 

(D) N. deaurata 

(E) N. delicatissima 

(F) N. magellanica 

(G) N. venosa

Reference:https://scielo.conicyt.cl/pdf/rchnat/v78n3/art11.pdf

here we can compare both the stress-strain curves of limpet teeth and Steel. In Steel, the deformation starts at 0.6GPa whereas the minimum deformation in the species of  Limpet teeth is around 2 Gpa that is far better than steel. If we compare hardness for steel and limpet teeth it is 80 and 268 - 646 that is more than 3 times of the steel.

Stress-Strain Curves for Limpet teeth and steel:

reference:

1.reference:http://rsif.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/12/105/20141326.short
2.https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272499330_The_Effect_of_medium_strain_rates_on_the_mechanical_properties_of_high_performance_steels

why limpet teeth have such high strength:

Limpet teeth have such high strength due to following factors

1. Nanometer length scale of goethite fibers

2. Critical Fibre Length - small

will be updated soon..

G S B Ravi Teja