题目：The Hierarchy of Structure-Property-Function Relations in Natural Silks

报告人：    Prof. David Porter

Department of Zoology

Universityof Oxford

 

Abstract

In this talk, I will present models for the structure, properties and function of natural silk fibres, from their production and storage as concentrated protein solutions through their controlled rheological instability during spinning, to their excellent mechanical properties.  I discuss this hierarchy of processes in terms of a management of energy across all scales of dimension, from molecular structure to bulk engineering properties.

The basic mean field energy method of Group Interaction Modelling allows the complex nonlinear viscoelastic properties of a polymer to be predicted very easily and accurately over all temperatures and rates from the polymer structure.  The model can be applied to any polymer type, and silk is a good example of a semicrystalline polymer to demonstrate the model.  The model is self-consistent for all the different states of matter, so the same model can predict properties of crystal, glasses, rubbers, or liquids.

I will use the example of spider and silkworm silk as a model polymer, which we can use as an ancient example of how we might use lessons from nature to help improve modern synthetic polymers.