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Mussels use byssal threads to secure themselves to rocks and as shock absorbers during cyclic loading from wave motion. Byssal threads combine high strength and toughness with extensibility of nearly 200%. Researchers attribute tensile properties of byssal threads to their elaborate multi-domain collagenous protein cores. Because the elastic properties have been previously scrutinized, we instead examined byssal thread viscoelastic behaviour, which is essential for withstanding cyclic loading. By targeting protein domains in the collagenous core via chemical treatments, stress relaxation experiments provided insights on domain contributions and were coupled with in situ small-angle X-ray scattering to investigate relaxation-specific molecular reorganizations. Results show that when silk-like domains in the core were disrupted, the stress relaxation of the threads decreased by nearly 50% and lateral molecular spacing also decreased, suggesting that these domains are essential for energy dissipation and assume a compressed molecular rearrangement when disrupted. A generalized Maxwell model was developed to describe the stress relaxation response. The model predicts that maximal damping (energy dissipation) occurs at around 0.1 Hz which closely resembles the wave frequency along the California coast and implies that these materials may be well adapted to the cyclic loading of the ambient conditions.

The remarkable ability of some plants and animals to cling strongly to substrates despite relatively weak interfacial bonds has important implications for the development of synthetic adhesives. Here, we examine the origins of large detachment forces using a thin elastomer tape adhered to a glass slide via van der Waals interactions, which serves as a model system for geckos, mussels and ivy. The forces required for peeling of the tape are shown to be a strong function of the angle of peeling, which is a consequence of frictional sliding at the edge of attachment that serves to dissipate energy that would otherwise drive detachment. Experiments and theory demonstrate that proper accounting for frictional sliding leads to an inferred work of adhesion of only approximately 0.5 J m(-2) (defined for purely normal separations) for all load orientations. This starkly contrasts with the interface energies inferred using conventional interface fracture models that assume pure sticking behaviour, which are considerably larger and shown to depend not only on the mode-mixity, but also on the magnitude of the mode-I stress intensity factor. The implications for developing frameworks to predict detachment forces in the presence of interface sliding are briefly discussed.