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Natural materials

Armoured oyster shells

Nature Materials volume 13, pages 435–437 (2014)Cite this article

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The remarkable properties of a bivalve shell that enable it to protect the animal against its predators could inspire the design of new lightweight armour materials.

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Figure 1: The armoured protection of Arapaima gigas fish scales.
Figure 2: The containment of penetration damage in the shell of the P. placenta bivalve when nanoindented3.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Robert O. Ritchie is in the Department of Materials Science & Engineering and the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of California, and the Materials Sciences Division of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, USA, Berkeley, California 94720, USA,

    Robert O. Ritchie

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  1. Robert O. Ritchie
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Correspondence to Robert O. Ritchie.

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Ritchie, R. Armoured oyster shells. Nature Mater 13, 435–437 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat3956

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