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4 A D V A N C E D M A T E R I A L S & P R O C E S S E S | A P R I L 2 0 1 9 ASM International 9639 Kinsman Road, Materials Park, OH 44073 Tel: 440.338.5151 • Fax: 440.338.4634 Frances Richards, Editor-in-Chief frances.richards@asminternational.org Joanne Miller, Editor joanne.miller@asminternational.org Ed Kubel and Corinne Richards, Contributing Editors Jim Pallotta, Creative Director jim.pallotta@asminternational.org Jan Nejedlik, Layout and Design Kelly Sukol, Production Manager kelly.suko l@asminternational.org Press Release Editor magazines@asminternational.org EDITORIAL COMMITTEE Adam Farrow, Chair, Los Alamos National Lab John Shingledecker, Vice Chair, EPRI Somuri Prasad, Past Chair, Sandia National Lab Jason Sebastian, Board Liaison, QuesTek Innovations LLC Tomasz Chojnacki, Caterpillar Inc. Surojit Gupta, University of North Dakota Nia Harrison, Ford Motor Company Hideyuki Kanematsu, Suzuka National College of Technology Ibrahim Karaman, Texas A&M University Scott Olig, U.S. Naval Research Lab Amit Pandey, Granta Design/Ansys Satyam Sahay, John Deere Technology Center India Anand Somasekharan, Los Alamos National Lab Kumar Sridharan, University of Wisconsin Jaimie Tiley, U.S. Air Force Research Lab Jean-Paul Vega, Siemens Energy ASMBOARDOF TRUSTEES David U. Furrer, President and Chair of the Board Zi-Kui Liu, Vice President Frederick E. Schmidt, Jr., Immediate Past President Raymond V. Fryan, Treasurer Prem K. Aurora Larry D. Hanke Roger A. Jones Diana Lados Thomas M. Moore Jason Sebastian Larry Somrack Judith A. Todd John D. Wolodko William T. Mahoney, Secretary and Chief Executive Officer STUDENT BOARDMEMBERS Aadithya Jeyaranjan, Kenna Ritter, Eli Vandersluis Individual readers of Advanced Materials & Processes may, without charge, make single copies of pages therefrom for per- sonal or archival use, or may freely make such copies in such numbers as are deemed useful for educational or research purposes and are not for sale or resale. Permission is granted to cite or quote fromarticles herein, provided customary acknowledgment of the authors and source is made. The acceptance and publication of manuscripts in Advanced Materials & Processes does not imply that the reviewers, editors, or publisher accept, approve, or endorse the data, opinions, and conclusions of the authors. T oday is the first day of spring as I write this column— March 20—and let me tell you, it has arrived not a mo- ment too soon. We have survived yet another winter and for those of us in challenging geographies, we can take some pride in that. Now, I’mnot sure if it’s just me, but it seems like there is an abundance of nature-inspired designs in the materials science and engineering (MSE) news lately. I’d like to highlight some of these springtime developments fromour enterprising MSE colleagues. Following are a few headlines and brief descriptions: • “Lobster’s underbelly is as tough as industrial rubber.” A new study from MIT suggests that the lobster’s underbelly membrane properties could guide the design of flexible body armor. The team’s results show that the lobster mem- brane is the toughest material of all natural hydrogels, including collagen, animal skins, and natural rubber. The membrane is nearly as strong as indus- trial rubber composites, such as those used for tires, garden hoses, and con- veyor belts. • “Feathers: Better than Velcro?” Research- er Tarah Sullivan from the University of California, San Diego 3D-printed struc- tures that mimic the vanes, barbs, and barbules of bird feathers to better under- stand their properties, such as how the underside of a feather can capture air for lift, while the top can block out air when gravity needs to take over. She found that the barbules (pictured)—small, hook-like structures that connect feather barbs— are spaced within 8 to 16 µm of one another in all birds, no matter their size. This suggests the spacing is an important property for flight. Sullivan believes studying the vane-barb-barbule structure could lead to new materials for aerospace applications as well as new adhesives (think Velcro and its barbs). • “Lotus leaf inspires scientists to create world’s first self-cleaning metals.” A team of European researchers is taking cues from defense mechanisms found in plants such as the lotus leaf. The new TresClean project reports a breakthrough that will enable production of self-cleaning sheet metal on an industrial scale for the first time. TresClean uses laser cutting devices to create microscopic spikes and ridges in sheet metal, causing liquids to bounce off the rough microtopography that mimics the surface of the lotus leaf. • “Unraveling another secret of spider silk—it’s a cable.” A strand of spider silk is five times stronger than a steel cable of the same weight, says Hannes Schniepp of the College of William & Mary. His lab has been studying the secrets behind the strength of the brown recluse spider. “We were expecting to find that the fiber was a single mass,” says Schniepp. “But what we found was that the silk was actually a kind of tiny cable. It turns out that the fiber is made of a number of nanostrands.” The new research reports that a typical recluse-silk filament is made up of around 2500 nanostrands placed next to each other in parallel. For further inspiration, we hope you’ll take a fewmoments to page through our spring catalog beginning on page 33 and treat yourself to a gift of knowledge. Enjoy the issue, and we look forward to your comments. frances.richards@asminternational.org BIOMIMICRY ALIVE AND WELL IN MATERIALS SCIENCE Bird feather barbules could inspire new adhesives.