Toughness of spider silk at high and low temperatures
Yang Y., Chen X., Shao Z., Zhou P., Porter D., Knight DP., Vollrath F.
The strength and toughness of certain spider silk were investigated using dynamic mechanical thermal analyzer (DMTA). It was observed that the increase in temperature up to 150°C produced little change in the tensile behavior of the spider silk. The static mechanical measurements suggested that the combination of high tensile strength and high extensibility gave the natural spider silk remarkable toughness at low temperature. It was found that the elongation at break decreased with increasing temperature and reached a minimum around 70°C.