The relationship between a Toucans beak and new materials Essay

The relationship between a Toucans beak and new materials - Essay ExampleAn example of such natural inspirations is the toucans beak. This is a nifty natural phenomenon that has attracted much attention from material engineers as they try to study its properties and understand the factors behind its unique features.The toucans beak is long and thick, and is perceived to be heavy for the bird though it is relatively light despite its size (Seki, Kad Benson & Meyers, 2006). The toucans beak is a third of the birds space, about 1/20 its mass, and has been proven to possess salient stiffness (Seki, Schneider & Meyers, 2005). A study of the birds beak found it to be made of a sandwich composite with keratin on its outside and close calcium cells rich proteins reservation a fibrous network (Seki, Schneider & Meyers, 2005). Moreover, the closed cell making the birds beak has fibers with a young modulus of more than twice as high as the keratin shell on the outside callable to the calci um content. Therefore, such biological materials when well-studied inspires engineers to come up with materials that correspond to the beak, which incidentally would offer similar characteristics and qualities in engineering materials , resulting to superior materials for specific usage. For example the length of a toucans beak and its size in relation to its light weight inspire engineers to come up with martials with a keratin coating on the outside, fibrous networks on the inside, plus an added calcium layer to achieve the strength and flexibility portrayed by a toucan bird, but still meet the requirement to have such a large component with light weight.In the construction industry where flexible materials are essential, such toucans beak offers a great inspiration for engineers to come up with similar materials, which will offer more flexibility, will be much light compared to its size, will possess great strength, and which will absorb high impacts (Biomimicry Institute 2013). Such materials