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Investigation of mechanical properties of tibia and femur articulations of insect joints with different joint functions

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Abstract

Insects have more than a million described species and represent more than half of all known living organisms. However, little is known about the operation and functions of the insect body, particularly their remarkable leg joints. This study is focused on partly filling this knowledge gap by using nanoindentation instruments to characterize the mechanical properties of leg joints from three different insects: a beetle, a mantis, and a dragonfly nymph. For all insect species, the tibia joint had the largest effective elastic moduli, followed by the femur joint, while the exocuticle had the smallest values.

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Acknowledgments

This material is based upon the work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1434421 to J.K. Oh and M. Akbulut.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, Dankook University, 152 Jukjeon-ro, Suji-gu, Yongin-si, Gyeonggi-do, 16890, Korea

    Jun Kyun Oh

  2. Departmentof Entomology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, 77843, USA

    Spencer T. Behmer & Richelle Marquess

  3. Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, 77843, USA

    Ethan A. Scholar

  4. Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, 77843, USA

    Mustafa Akbulut

Authors
  1. Jun Kyun Oh
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  2. Spencer T. Behmer
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  3. Richelle Marquess
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  4. Ethan A. Scholar
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  5. Mustafa Akbulut
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Correspondence to Jun Kyun Oh or Mustafa Akbulut.

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Oh, J.K., Behmer, S.T., Marquess, R. et al. Investigation of mechanical properties of tibia and femur articulations of insect joints with different joint functions. MRS Communications 9, 900–903 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1557/mrc.2019.71

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1557/mrc.2019.71

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