Plus, it's lightweight and very flexible.

This is in excellent agreement with our observations for both spider dragline and silkworm silk fibers, and explains the fact that the spider dragline silk fibers having a lower crystallinity are much stronger than silkworm silk fibers.

It’s so thin and light!

Spider silk is incredibly strong and flexible. Spider silk is not stronger than steel. The silk protein comes out of the spider as a liquid, then becomes a solid string that can be used for lots of different jobs. The properties of spider silk—also known as gossamer —can seem mysterious if we try to think of it as a kind of string; however, the strength of spider silk comes primarily from its complex structure on the microscopic scale. Today's body armor used by soldiers can be quite heavy. Spider silk is one of the strongest and toughest materials in nature. Spider silk is a remarkably strong material; the strongest natually-occurring fiber known. As is evident, the tensile strength of spider silk is much lower than Kevlar but higher than steel. How is spider silk so strong? Density: Strong as it is, the silk is also incredibly light. This results in a much higher overall toughness that is rarely observed. It produces huge webs, about the … Spiders normally use their silk to make structures, either for protection for their offspring, or for predation on other creatures. "One possible way to increase the toughness could be to spin NT2RepCT fibers with diameters closer to that of … It is much lighter than steel itself, and its density (1.31 g/cm3) is actually one-sixth of the density of steel. Spiders might coat fiber in a sticky substance, for example, or a waterproof material. Its tensile strength is comparable to that of high-grade steel. But that shouldn't stop us from studying it, or from thinking of it as a wonder material. Also, each spider makes very little silk, so you would need hundreds of them to get a single gram of silk. Silk can also be coated with various substances suited for different purposes. New research shows that the material is not only strong but also smart. Spider’s silk is at least five times as strong as steel and yet is much more stretchable. The way the web is built means that if a single strand of web breaks, the strength of the web actually increases. Although silk is very strong, that's not the only important factor in a web's strength. Spider Silk Is Strong Because It's Smart. The rest of the web is made from flag silk, which is less strong but very elastic, so it is really good at absorbing the shock when a great big fly smashes into the web. It’s so strong, Indian and South Korean researchers are using it to create nano-scale piezoelectric generators. The different silks have unique physical properties such as strength, toughness and elasticity, but all are very strong compared to other natural and synthetic materials. Spider silk is a remarkably strong material. But the champion constructor of the spider world is the Darwin bark spider. Silk is made of protein. Now, as can be inferred, Spider Silk of the Darwin spider (Caerostris darwini) is tougher than both steel and kevlar, however less stiffer than both steel and kevlar. Also, the silk that is the strongest would be the dragline silk made by orb weaver spiders (the ones that spin webs), but they also make around 6 other kinds of weaker silk, so you can't just collect their webs, you have to strap them down and manually extract the correct type of silk . Also, while the synthetic spider silk acted much like the real thing, it had lower toughness and tensile strength than its natural counterpart, meaning it breaks more easily. Spider silk is an extremely strong material and is on weight basis much stronger than steel but also lighter and more flexible . Spider (dragline) silk is unique in that it has a relatively high strength (still much weaker than kevlar), and relatively high extensibility (but not as stretchy as say a rubber band).