Flexible Protective Equipment Inspired by Teleost Fish

Innovation: Academia

Hunan University

2020

Image: Charles Postiaux / Unsplash / CC BY SA - Creative Commons Attribution + ShareAlike

Manage Impact

An impact is a high force or mechanical shock that happens over a short period of time, such as a hammer hitting a nail rather than a hand pushing slowly against a wall. Because of their speed and force, impacts don’t allow materials to slowly adjust to the force, which can lead to cracks, ruptures, and complete breakage. Therefore, living systems have strategies that can absorb, dissipate, or otherwise survive that force without the need to add large amounts of material. For example, the Toco toucan’s large beak is very lightweight, yet can withstand impacts because it’s made of a composite material with rigid foam inside and layers of a hard, fibrous material outside.

Search this Function

Protective equipment from Hunan University has a two layer design that makes it flexible and impact-resistant.

Benefits

Flexible
Impact-resistant

Applications

Armor and protection

UN Sustainable Development Goals Addressed

Goal 3: Good Health & Wellbeing
Goal 9: Industry Innovation & Infrastructure
Goal 12: Responsible Production & Consumption

The Challenge

Helmets and protective equipment are designed to protect humans from injuries. However, they are often made of plastic and styrofoam, which take a long time to decompose and have a significant environmental impact.

Innovation Details

The protective equipment is a two-layered structure consisting of an outer layer of hard-ceramic and an inner layer of ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene-based material. The composite scales are arranged in a hierarchical design similar to fish scales, and are supported by back layers of Kevlar fabrics. This design helps to protect from significant impacts, including bullets and other high-impact materials.

Biological Model

The scales on teleost fish provide high resistance to penetration due to their double-layer structure. The outer bony layer withstands most of the impact from bites and scratches, and dissipates the force to protect the softer collagen layer underneath. Any impact that makes it to the collagen layer is further resisted by the woven pattern of its fibers, which stretch under pressure to dissipate impact.

See Related Strategy

close up photograph of silver and black fish scales

Biological Strategy

Scales Provide Penetrative Protection

Striped bass

Scales on striped bass provide high resistance to penetration due to their double-layer structure.

References

Journal article

A new design and performance optimization of bio-inspired flexible protective equipment

Bioinspiration & Biomimetics

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