Ling Li, an assistant professor in mechanical engineering at Virginia Tech, has found insights into building stronger and tougher ceramics by studying the shells of bivalve mollusks.
This perspective is formed by looking at the capacity of the basic mineral building blocks in the shell to anticipate fractures, instead of focusing only on the shape and chemistry of the structure. The results of his group’s findings were published in the Nov. 10, 2020, issue of Nature Communications.
