This thesis deals with the micromechanical properties (microhardness and elastic modulus) of selected molluscan shell microstructures and their relationship to crystallographic textures and environment. Results of the study suggest that extremely high hydrostatic pressure has a relatively weak influence on the mechanical properties of calcitic as well as aragonitic shell layers. No statistically significant difference was found in microhardness and elastic modulus of nacre between bivalvian species living in marine and freshwater environments. On the other hand, the study reveals a statistically significant positive correlation between the micromechanical properties and thickness of aragonitic platelets forming the nacre. Unexpected result is a negative correlation of the degree of ordering of aragonitic platelets with both elastic modulus as well as microhardness. Thus the degree of ordering explains about 80% of the variability of these micromechanical properties. Statistically significant but weaker correlation was also found between micromechanical properties and textural type of bivalvian nacre. The nacre with uniaxial texture is harder and more elastic than the nacre with quasimonocrystallic texture. The data suggests that higher hardness and elasticity corresponds to a primitive state of nacre and that during the subsequent evolution values of these micromechanical properties were decreasing. This trend contradicts with generally accepted hypothesis of increassing predation pressure in the marine ecosystem during the Paleozoic and Mesozoic.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:nusl.cz/oai:invenio.nusl.cz:259607 |
| Date | January 2015 |
| Creators | Hrabánková, Iva |
| Contributors | Frýda, Jiří, Marika , Marika |
| Publisher | Česká zemědělská univerzita v Praze |
| Source Sets | Czech ETDs |
| Language | Czech |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/doctoralThesis |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/restrictedAccess |
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