Engineers, inspired by the counterintuitive toughness of the brittle mineral makeup of mollusk shells, have developed a new type of glass 200 times stronger than an ordinary pane.
Taking what they learnt, the team used a 3D laser to engrave microscopic fissures into glass slides, filled them with a polymer, and found it made them 200 times tougher.
The glass could absorb impacts better—yielding and bending slightly instead of shattering.
“A container made of standard glass will break and shatter if it is dropped on the floor.
“In contrast, a container made of our bio-inspired glass has the possibility to deform a little, without completely fracturing,” study co-author Francois Barthelat told AFP.
“That container could therefore be used again after one or several drops.”
The engraved glass can “stretch” by almost five percent before snapping—compared to a strain capacity of only 0.1 percent for standard glass.
The stronger glass may find application in bullet-proof windows, glasses, or even smartphone screens.
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
