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"Coconut palms can grow as high as 30m, and when the ripe fruits fall to the ground their walls must protect them from splitting open. To protect the internal seed, coconuts have a structure of three layers which allow them to withstand heavy impacts. The university’s Plant Biomechanics Group believes this specialised structure could be applied in architecture, and has been working with civil engineers and material scientists to develop this idea as part of a programme called Biological Design and Integrative Structures. [...] The group found that the ladder-like design of vessels in the coconut’s inner endocarp layer “dissipates energy via crack deflection," meaning newly-developed cracks created by an impact don't run directly through the hard shell, but are diverted and stop before the crack separates the fruit. "
