Ask A Scientist General Science Archive

 
name         Marian S.
status       student
age          14

Question -   How can I measure the tensile strength of a spider web?
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Marian,

I am imagining that this will be a very difficult problem. For one thing,
studying actual webs that a spider is still using strikes me as unsavory as
you would be literally destroying a spider's home and means of obtaining 
food.
On the other hand, studying old webs (that have turned into cobwebs) includes
an additional parameter of time - older webs are partially degraded and
therefore less strong. Moreover, different spiders at different ages probably
make different strength webs. Before I would go about measuring spider web
strengths, I would check books to see if there is already data out there with
such information.

On the other hand, if you feel that you really want to measure the 
strength of
a web on your own (remembering that different spiders may make different
strength webs), I would consider dropping different weights from a particular
height onto single strands of webbing to see at what point the web breaks.

Greg (Roberto Gregorius)
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