Nature designs tough collagen: Explaining the nanostructure of collagen fibrils

Collagen is a protein material with superior mechanical properties. It consists of collagen fibrils composed of a staggered array of ultra-long tropocollagen (TC) molecules. Theoretical and molecular modeling suggests that this natural design of collagen fibrils maximizes the strength and provides large energy dissipation during deformation, thus creating a tough and robust material. We find that the mechanics of collagen fibrils can be understood quantitatively in terms of two critical molecular length scales chi(S) and chi(R) that characterize when (i) deformation changes from homogeneous intermolecular shear to propagation of slip pulses and when (ii) covalent bonds within TC molecules begin to fracture,…