Spider Web, An Inspiration to Material Science Engineers

Since years, researchers and scientists have always marveled at the rigidity, strength and stability of spider webs that is even stronger than steel. Silk derived from a spider web is a subject of research for the material scientists and engineers as they discover how pressure or strain applied to a thread of spider web, stiffens the single thread of silk and as pressure builds it evenly spreads across the web in order to ensure that the whole web remains intact or unbroken before it reaches a peak point causing breakage. In this example, despite of the constant pressure applied on a single thread of spider web that eventually breaks it, the web remains intact and unbroken which is a very good example for material scientists and engineers to learn and compare between materials of constructions and machinery and a spider web. The most remarkable feature of a spider web is its ability to remain intact even after any of its thread or silk is damaged or broken. This characteristic is never found in modern scientific creations such as buildings, machines or technology which makes spider webs an innovative and unique science for the researchers. 

Spider webs are naturally occurring materials and structures and according to the opinion of material scientists and engineers, all materials and structures in their natural forms show peculiar behavior and characteristics due to their chemical composition. Every material and structure found in nature in its natural form exhibits a different shape, size, property and behavior depending on its chemical composition whether organic or inorganic. Taking spider web as an example, scientists and material engineers have understood that materials and their structures can be changes, altered and transformed into new shapes and designs by way of adding or combining new materials. Spider webs have proved to be an innovative way of thinking for material engineers and scientists as it allows them to think form a different perspectives and angles that were never attempted before. The unique properties and behavior of spider webs compels material engineers to compare spider webs characteristics and behavior with that of other materials and structures that we see and experiences in the world. Spider web acting as an example, material engineers have understood that new properties of materials can be obtained by adding or combining natural materials that are superior in quality and characteristics. In the field of material engineering, materials that are derived from combining or adding two or more materials are referred to as composites. Just like spider webs, there are plenty of naturally occurring materials found in nature in their natural forms such as diamonds, stones, sand, timber, cotton, marbles etc. Just like the chemical composition of a spider web plays a crucial role in maintaining its rigidity, strength and design; the peculiar properties of these naturally occurring substances are determined by the strong ionic bonds & covalent bonds that exists between their molecular or atomic structures contents. 

In order to apply the laws and characteristics of spider webs to different materials and shapes, material engineers and scientists need to implement the applications of Nanotechnology. This is a new and innovative branch of science that primarily pertains to creation and building of operational structures or shapes from the molecular levels or atomic scale with a minimum of 1 characteristic feature that is measurable using nanometer scale. The properties of spider web can be best applied to materials at nanometer scale as the atomic shapes and sizes of substances at nanometer scale allows materials and their properties to represent a completely new and improved chemical, physical and biological characteristics, processes and phenomenon. On the basis of facts and evidences found in researches, it can be said that nanometer scale phenomenon has a significant influence on the material properties because of the intermediation of bulk substances and isolated atoms that vary between 1 to 1000 nanometers. Nanometer scale phenomenon allows materials to display completely different characteristics and properties than those in the atomic or bulky form. The world at nanometer scale phenomenon is completely different than the world at a larger dimension because of the significant difference in the properties of matter at nanometer scale phenomenon.