Elephants can extend their trunks by 20% in order to reach faraway objects. Muscular hydrostats such as earthworms, tongues, and octopus arms are all known to have similar levels of extensibility. However, the large and heavy trunk has the added constraints of being durable as well. In this study, we perform material testing on skin sections of the elephant trunk. This skin varies along the trunk with the dorsal portion having folds and the ventral portion having wrinkles. In tensile tests, the folds have ten times the strain as flat portions of skin, and wrinkles having three times the strain as flat portions. To better interpret the strains observed in tensile testing, we perform numerical simulations of elastic material with wrinkles and folds. We show that wrinkles and folds are a good solution for providing strength and extensibility.
| Author(s): | Andrew Schulz and Emily Fourney and Sophia Sordilla and Ajay Sukhwani and David Hu |
| Book Title: | IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) |
| Year: | 2020 |
| Month: | October |
| Publisher: | IEEE |
| Bibtex Type: | Conference Paper (conference) |
| Event Place: | Las Vegas |
| Electronic Archiving: | grant_archive |
BibTex
@conference{Schulz20-IROS-Kevlar,
title = {Elephant Trunk Skin: Nature's Flexible Kevlar},
booktitle = {IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)},
abstract = {Elephants can extend their trunks by 20% in order to reach faraway objects. Muscular hydrostats such as earthworms, tongues, and octopus arms are all known to have similar levels of extensibility. However, the large and heavy trunk has the added constraints of being durable as well. In this study, we perform material testing on skin sections of the elephant trunk. This skin varies along the trunk with the dorsal portion having folds and the ventral portion having wrinkles. In tensile tests, the folds have ten times the strain as flat portions of skin, and wrinkles having three times the strain as flat portions. To better interpret the strains observed in tensile testing, we perform numerical simulations of elastic material with wrinkles and folds. We show that wrinkles and folds are a good solution for providing strength and extensibility.},
publisher = {IEEE},
month = oct,
year = {2020},
slug = {schulz20-iros-kevlar},
author = {Schulz, Andrew and Fourney, Emily and Sordilla, Sophia and Sukhwani, Ajay and Hu, David},
month_numeric = {10}
}