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210 Handbook of Properties of Textile and Technical Fibres

Figure 6.15 Strain energy as a function of impact time for different web materials in the elastic
domain. (Ko and Jovicic, 2004).

Figure 6.16 Strain energy as a function of impact time for different web materials in the plastic
range of deformation (Ko and Jovicic, 2004).

6.5 Engineering properties of man-made spider silk

Humans have been collecting silk from silkworm cocoons for textiles for thousands of
years. However, the same strategy is not applicable to spider silk. Spiders can be canni-
balistic when their territory is intruded and the silk harvesting process can be very
laborious. Recent advance in recombinant DNA technology has opened new doors
for the scientists to manufacturing of foreign proteins in host organisms thus leading
to the possibility of large scale production of spider silk.