Post by Supercommunist on Aug 14, 2024 21:25:39 GMT 5
Whereas covering a cartilage-like gel with a hard, continuous shell is expected to increase the stiffness but decrease the flexibility of a composite, there is some indication – from tessellated cartilage but also fabricated arrays (e.g., Martini et al., 2017) – that a tessellated shell with interacting tiles can be a “best-of-both-worlds” configuration, maximizing desirable properties of both tissue phases. Fahle and Thomason (2008) showed that compared with embryonic (non-tessellated) small-spotted catsharks (S. canicula), adult individuals have jaw cartilage that has a higher ability to damp mechanical energy, but is also stiffer. A large portion of the stiffness is surely due to the tessellated layer in adult animals (Dean et al., 2009; Egerbacher et al., 2006; Enault et al., 2015; Seidel et al., 2016; Wilga et al., 2016). From the biological perspective, this change in properties permits adults to consume harder prey than newborns (Fahle & Thomason, 2008), but is also particularly intriguing for engineering considerations because stiffness and damping are typically negatively correlated in artificial materials (Rivin, 1999).
In fact, recent work has shown that some finescale structural features in tesserae (e.g., the high-mineral-density laminae in spokes) exhibit stiffness and hardness values that exceed those of mammalian bone and calcified cartilage and have properties more akin to tooth materials (Seidel et al., 2019a).
I remember in CF people would argue that cartilage skeletons were a disadvantage in a fight.
