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Contributions to Books:

I. Gebeshuber, H. Stachelberger, M. Drack:
"Diatom Biotribology";
in: "Life Cycle Tribology in: Tribology and Interface Engineering", Elsevier, Amsterdam/NL, 2005, ISBN: 0-444-51687-5, 365 - 370.



English abstract:
Organisms experience friction and wear. They have optimized lubrication
systems, since Nature is an 'engineering
oce' which has been 'in business' for millions of years. Examples for
biological friction systems at dierent
length scales are bacterial agellae, joints and articular cartilage as well as
muscle connective tissues.
The aim of biotribology is to gather information about friction, adhesion,
lubrication and wear of biological
systems and to apply this knowledge to innovate technology, with the
additional
benet of environmental
soundness.
Our model system for biomicro- and -nanotribological investigations are
diatoms. Diatoms are single celled
microalgae with a cell wall consisting of amorphous glass enveloped by an
organic layer.
Diatoms are small, highly reproductive, and accessible with dierent kinds of
microscopy methods.
There are several diatom species which actively move (e.g. Bacillaria
paxillifer forms colonies of 20 to 50 cells
which rhythmically expand and contract) or which can as cell colonies
reversibly be elongated by a major
fraction of their original length (e.g. by one third in Ellerbeckia arenaria
colonies). Diatoms also seem to show
highly ecient self lubrication while cells divide and grow.
These algae might be pursuing lubrication strategies which are still
unknown to
engineers!


Online library catalogue of the TU Vienna:
http://aleph.ub.tuwien.ac.at/F?base=tuw01&func=find-c&ccl_term=AC05938180


Created from the Publication Database of the Vienna University of Technology.