Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Science 24 September 1982:
Vol. 217. no. 4566, pp. 1267 - 1270
DOI: 10.1126/science.217.4566.1267
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Articles

Scaling in Tensile "Skeletons": Structures with Scale-Independent Length Dimensions

JANE A. PETERSON 1, JOHN A. BENSON 1, MARGARET NGAI 1, JAMES MORIN 1, and CATHY OW 1

1 Department of Biology, University of California, Los Angeles 90024

Skeletal structures that resist only tensile forces can scale differently than compression resisting structures that fail in bending or buckling. The tensile structures examined scalelike simple ropes: length and diameter of the structure are not correlated, and in three of four cases, length is independent of scale or load, but diameter is dependent on scale. These relations suggest that similarity in stress rather than strain, or deformational behavior, is the basis for mechanical adaptation in the gross dimensions of these tensile structures.

Submitted on September 19, 1980
Revised on June 7, 1982


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Ecological biomechanics of benthic organisms: life history, mechanical design and temporal patterns of mechanical stress.
M. Koehl (1999)
J. Exp. Biol. 202, 3469-3476
   Abstract »    PDF »


To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)