carbon-fibre bones and med-technology

[Raptor]

Originally Posted by Ashen Key

Couple of questions that I was interested in hearing you guys' thoughts on (both came up during research for a fic).

How would Na'vi bones act under physical stress?

Or rather, how would their carbon-fibre reinforced bones break or fracture? I read somewhere that they might splinter more then break, but carbon itself (so my research has lead me to believe) does break when under a sharp enough shock (like, say, a hammer). And also, carbon doesn't bend under pressure, it just snaps, so it seems to lose flexibility with the strength....but then again, we're taking about a composite of bone with carbon, so....Yeah. I'm not sure how Na'vi bones would actually react under physical stress, or what would cause them to break. (For fic, I need to break something to cause a character to have a limp, just not sure on the details yet).

According to Pandorapedia, the way that the carbon fiber is layered and woven in their bones means that they will first splay like bamboo when under extreme stress. This would allow the bone to still support certain amount of load, although it would be very painful. After splaying, increasing the load more and more will eventually break the bone. You can check the website for details, in case I get something wrong.