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Comparative Study of Strain‐Dependent Structural Changes of Silkworm Silks: Insight into the Structural Origin of Strain‐Stiffening
Author(s) -
Guo Chengchen,
Zhang Jin,
Wang Xungai,
Nguyen Anh Tuan,
Liu Xiang Yang,
Kaplan David L.
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
small
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.785
H-Index - 236
eISSN - 1613-6829
pISSN - 1613-6810
DOI - 10.1002/smll.201702266
Subject(s) - silk , stiffening , spider silk , antheraea pernyi , materials science , strain (injury) , toughness , composite material , fiber , polymer science , amorphous solid , chemistry , crystallography , biology , biochemistry , anatomy , gene
Abstract Structure–property relationships of silk is an intriguing topic for silk‐based biomaterials research since these features are related to biomimicking the processing in natural silk fiber formation which results in excellent mechanical properties. Strain‐stiffening is common for spider silks and nonmulberry silkworm silks. However, the structural origin of strain‐stiffening remains unclear. In this paper, the strain‐dependent structural change of Antheraea pernyi silkworm silk is studied by X‐ray fiber diffraction and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy under stretching. Based on a combination of mechanical and structural analysis, the molecular origins of strain‐stiffening in A. pernyi silk were determined. The relatively high content of the β‐sheets within the amorphous domains in A. pernyi silk is responsible for strain‐stiffening, where “molecular spindles” enhance the extensibility and toughness of the fiber.