(77b) Modelling of Protein Fibroin of Spider Silk with Using Liquid Crystalline Theory in the Steady State Mode

Spider silk is a high performance polymer nano-composite fiber produced by a biological spinning process of water soluble amphiphilic proteins. The mechanical properties of spider silks are comparable to those of other super-fibers such as Kevlar. Fiber spinning of synthetic super-fibers usually involves corrosive solvents and high temperature and the resulting product is not easily re-usable or biodegradable. The current efforts can help to understand the spider biospinning process that is involved in the conversion of water soluble proteins into a high performance water-insoluble nano-composite super-fiber. Much effort has been directed towards characterizing the primary and secondary structure of silk protein as well as the mechanical characterization of the silk fibers. Nevertheless it is widely recognized that the intermediate self-assembly and flow stages of this biological process that has been optimized by evolution are essential to the production of silk fibers. So in this presentation,a model for fibroin protein of spider silk in the vivo at static mode will be presented. This model can represent the orientation of molecules in the duct of spider.