Analysis of the armour of a ‘living fossil’ may help the military build better body armour, according to researchers from MIT.

The Polypterus senegalus fish lurks in pools in Africa, protected from attacks by its scaley suit of armour. Known as the ‘dinosaur eel’ its scales each have multiple layers 100 microns thick.

By working out the properties of one of these scales Christine Ortiz and colleagues think they can build better armour for humans.

“Such fundamental knowledge holds great potential for the development of improved biologically inspired structural materials, for example soldier, first-responder and military vehicle armour applications,” she says (press release). “Many of the design principles we describe – durable interfaces and energy-dissipating mechanisms, for instance – may be translatable to human armour systems.”

In a paper in Nature Materials the team report their simulated biting attack on scales removed from a living fish. They found that the different layers combine their different properties to create something much greater than the sum of its parts:

The junctions between material layers are clearly ‘functionally graded’, that is, they possess a gradual spatial change in properties motivated by the performance requirements and are able to promote load transfer and stress redistribution, thereby suppressing plasticity, arresting cracks, improving adhesion and preventing delamination between dissimilar material layers.

More

“Dinosaur eel” points to body armour of the future – AFP

Armour tips from a scaly era – The Boston Globe

Interview with Ortiz on WBUR

Headline watch: Who dares swims? Fish armour could provide better protection (Scotsman)

Image: photo courtesy Christine Ortiz