Scientists have made artificial shark skin with a 3-D printer that could eventually be used for underwater robots.

After purchasing a male shortfin mako shark, a Harvard University research team scanned a 4-square-millimeter patch of its skin to create a 3-D model of shark denticles, the scales similar to teeth that give the skin its rough texture.

Using a 3-D printer to construct the artificial skin resulted in the most detailed model ever made, Popular Mechanics reported.  

"Previous models were extremely simplified--you'd have little pieces of metal sticking up straight from a metal plate," said study author George Lauder, a biomechanist at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University, as quoted by Popular Mechanics.

"The shapes of these artificial denticles weren't right, and they weren't on flexible surfaces. You couldn't flap them to mimic how flexible bodies of sharks bend back and forth as they swim." 

Replicating the 3-D model thousands of times, the researchers built the artificial skin in layers to mimic the curve of a real shark's denticles.

"With its rigid denticles and flexible membrane, this is by far the best model yet of what shark skin is like," Lauder said of the 3-D printing job.

The next step was to attach the artificial skin to a flexible sheet that could move like a fish and test how the denticles affected swimming speed. The scientists, which have published their findings in the Journal of Experimental Biology, discovered that the 3-D skin increased swimming speed by 6.6 percent while reducing the energy spent by 5.9 percent.

While the technology likely won't make it to swimsuit production, it may soon be implemented into robotics.

The 3-D shark skin imitation could be used for underwater robots, "ones that are flexible and swim like fish, not robots that rely on propellers," Lauder said. "Reducing the cost of swimming by just 3 to 5 percent would still be a lot. In the long run, it could prove very fruitful." 

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