The innovation engine for new materials

Ryland Jolliffe

Ryland Jolliffe

Major: 

Materials Engineering

University: 

California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo

Mentor(s): 

Rubayn Goh

Faculty Sponsor(s): 

Herb Waite
Rachel Segalman

Faculty Sponsor's Department(s): 

Cellular, Molecular and Developmental Biology
Chemical Engineering

Project Title: 

Interpreting Small Angle X-ray Scattering (SAXS) Data Taken from Swell Shark Egg Cases

Project Description: 

Swell sharks produce collagenous egg cases that are tough, lightweight, and selectively permeable. The egg cases have a fiber composite structure that also has nanoscale ordering. Small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) was performed while tensile testing sections of these egg cases to study the deformation regimes these structures experience at different strains. A MATLAB script was developed to process reduced SAXS results so that the position, magnitude, and area under each diffraction peak could be tracked over the entire tensile test. This requires isolating the peaks so that background scattering can be fitted and subtracted from the data. This information will be used to test the three distinct deformation regimes currently believed to account for the structure’s stress-strain response. The goal of this script will be to quickly analyze a large volume of SAXS data and allow us to reach conclusions about how the nanostructure could develop these three deformation regimes.