Thursday, April 7, 2011

A new material that gets stiffer when it is stressed

Materials science

Stronger when stricken

ONE of the valuable properties of bone is that when it endures repeated stress it responds by becoming denser and stronger. A living material can do that. A non-living one cannot. It has no way of adding the extra matter needed to provide the extra density. But it would help engineers a lot if non-living stuff could at least stiffen in response to stress—and that may now be possible. Brent Carey, a graduate student at Rice University in Texas, thinks he has found a way to make it happen.

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