3D printed shell structure holds promise for biomimetic body armour

The findings are reported in Advanced Materials, in a paper by MIT graduate student Grace Gu, postdoc Mahdi Takaffoli, and McAfee Professor of Engineering Markus Buehler.

According to GU, conch shells possess a unique architecture with a structure that makes the material 10 times tougher than nacre, commonly known as mother of pearl. This resistance to fractures comes from a unique configuration based on three different levels of hierarchy in the material’s internal structure.

The three-tiered structure makes it very hard for any tiny cracks to propagate; the material has a “zigzag matrix, so the crack has to go through a kind of a maze” in order to spread, said Gu.

The structure of a conch shell is well understood but replicating it has so far proved challenging. “But now, our lab has developed 3D printing technology that allows us to duplicate that structure and be able to test it,” said Buehler, who is the head of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.