NEW YORK (AP) – It’s a beetle that can withstand bird droppings, animal rocks and be rolled by a Toyota Camry. Now scientists are studying what the crush-resistant shell of a bug can teach them about the formation of strong planes and buildings.
“This beetle is very tough,” said Pablo Zavattiri, a civil engineer at Purdue University, who was part of a group of researchers who ran into an insect with a car as part of a new study.
So, how does a seemingly indestructible insect do it? According to a study published in Nature on Wednesday by Javattiari and his colleagues, the species – aptly named Diabolic Ironclad beetle – has its unusual armor, layered like a jigsaw and built together. And, he says, its design could help inspire a more durable structure and vehicles.
To understand what gives an inch-long beetle its power, researchers first tested how much squeezing it can take. The species, which can be found in the woodlands of Southern California, faces compression about 39,000 times its own weight.
For a 200-pound man, that would be like avoiding a 7.8-million-pound crush.
One-third of other endemic species have become extinct under pressure.
The researchers then used an electron microscope and a CT scan to test the beetle’s exoskeleton and find out what made it so strong.
As is often the case for flightless beetles, the genus Eltra – a protective case that usually covers the wings – was strengthened and hardened over time. Nearby, scientists realized that the cover also benefited from special, jigsaw-like construction and layered architecture.
When compressed, they slowly broke the structure instead of snaping all at once.
“When you separate them,” Zavatteri said, “they can’t break catastrophically. It just distorts a little bit. It is crucial for the beetle. ”
It can also be useful for engineers who design aircraft and other vehicles with a wide variety of materials such as steel, plastic and plaster. Currently, engineers rely on pins, bolts, welding and adhesives to keep everything together. But there could be a decline in those techniques.
In the composition of the beetle’s shell, nature offers an “interesting and elegant” option, Zavtier said.
Because of the successive and predictable beetle-induced design fractures, cracks can be more reliably observed for safety, not related to the research, said Po-Yu Chen, an engineer at Taiwan’s National Tsing Hua University.
The beetle study is part of a million-dollar project funded by the U.S. Air Force that could help develop biologically impact-resistant materials for animals such as the mantis shrimp and the bygran sheep.
“We’re trying to move beyond what nature has done,” said study co-author David Kisilus, a materials scientist and engineer at the University of California, Irvine.
The research is an advanced attempt to draw from the natural world to solve human problems, said Colin Donihu, an evolutionary biologist at Brown University who was not involved in the study. Velcro, for example, was inspired by a hook-like structure of plant burrs. Synthetic adhesives took a page from the super-clingy gecko foot.
Donihu said that the endless other qualities found in nature can give insight: “This is an adaptation that has evolved over a thousand years.”
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The Associated Press The Department of Health and Science is supported by the Department of Science Education at Howard Hughes Medical Institute. AP is fully responsible for all content.
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