Sea urchin skeletons could owe a few of their power to a typical geometric design.
Components of the skeletons of widespread sea urchins (Paracentrotus lividus) observe the same sample to that present in honeycombs and dragonfly wings, researchers report within the August Journal of the Royal Society Interface. Studying this recurring pure order might encourage the creation of robust but light-weight new supplies.
Urchin skeletons show “an incredible diversity of structures at the microscale, varying from fully ordered to entirely chaotic,” says marine biologist and biomimetic advisor Valentina Perricone. These constructions could assist the animals preserve their form when confronted with predator assaults and environmental stresses.
While utilizing a scanning electron microscope to check urchin skeleton tubercules — websites the place the spines connect that stand up to robust mechanical forces — Perricone noticed “a curious regularity.” Tubercules appear to observe a sort of widespread pure order known as a Voronoi sample, she and her colleagues discovered.
This Voronoi sample generated on a pc has an 82 p.c match with the sample present in sea urchin skeletons.V. Perricone
Using math, a Voronoi sample is created by a course of that divides a area into polygon-shaped cells which are constructed round factors inside them known as seeds (SN: 9/23/18). The cells observe the closest neighbor rule: Every spot inside a cell is nearer to that cell’s seed than to every other seed. Also, the boundary that separates two cells is equidistant from each their seeds.
A pc-generated Voronoi sample had an 82 p.c match with the sample present in sea urchin skeletons. This association, the group suspects, yields a robust but light-weight skeletal construction. The sample “can be interpreted as an evolutionary solution” that “optimizes the skeleton,” says Perricone, of the University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli” in Aversa, Italy.
Urchins, dragonflies and bees aren’t the one beneficiaries of Voronoi structure. “We are developing a library of bioinspired, Voronoi-based structures” that might “serve as lightweight and resistant solutions” for supplies design, Perricone says. These, she hopes, might encourage new developments in supplies science, aerospace, structure and building.