Bone-inspired steel cracks less under pressure
Variable pockets may make the building material more resilient
The heavy-duty material used to build bridges and sculpt skyscrapers could learn a few tricks from humble bones.
Steel’s weakness is its tendency to develop microscopic cracks that eventually make the material fracture. Repeated cycles of stress — daily rush hour traffic passing over a bridge, for example — nurture these cracks, which often aren’t apparent until the steel collapses. Bones, however, have a complex inner structure that helps them deal with stress. This structure differs depending on the scale, with tiny vertically aligned fibers building up into larger cylinders.