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Technical note: Converting durometer data into

elastic modulus in biological materials
Article in American Journal of Physical Anthropology December 2011
DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.21628 Source: PubMed

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AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 146:650653 (2011)

Technical Note: Converting Durometer Data into Elastic

Modulus in Biological Materials
James D. Pampush,1* David J. Daegling,1 Anna E. Vick,2 W. Scott McGraw,3
Ryan M. Covey,3 and Andrew J. Rapoff4
1

Department
Department
3
Department
4
Department
2

of
of
of
of

Anthropology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL

Social and Behavioral Sciences, Santa Fe College, Gainesville, FL
Anthropology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH
Mechanical Engineering, Union College, Schenectady, NY

KEY WORDS

durometer; elastic modulus (E); food material properties; hardness; stiffness

ABSTRACT
Researchers have increasingly recognized the need to quantify the material properties of
primate food items, particularly hardness (H) and
stiffness (E), which is measured as elastic modulus.
Assessing E in the eld is particularly difcult because
the typical equipment needed to perform the requisite
analyses is expensive and cumbersome. Alternatively,
researchers can use hand-held, relatively inexpensive,
portable durometers that measure H on Shore scales.
Shore-D durometers show a reliable ability to character-

ize H in harder-stiffer materials, and Shore-D measures

in these materials can be reliably converted to E. ShoreA durometersemployed in past eld studies of food
propertiesdo not accurately characterize the properties
of harder-stiffer materials, which are likely to be those
materials exerting the greatest mechanical demands on
primate masticatory morphology. We offer recommendations for Shore-D durometer usage in the eld. Am J
Phys Anthropol 146:650653, 2011. V 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Increasingly, researchers have recognized the need to

quantify the material properties of primate foods to better
understand the relationship between feeding mechanics
and anatomical structure of primate jaws and teeth
(Agrawal et al., 1997; Williams et al., 2005). Among the
many important material properties of interest is the stiffness of the material, which is described by elastic modulus
(E). Assessment of the elastic modulus of a food item can
provide insights into food choice as well as how the food
material is optimally processed, and thus potentially the
selective pressures on feeding behavior and oral anatomy
(Lucas and Luke, 1984; Strait, 1997). Elastic modulus is
calculated by measuring the slope of the linear portion of
the stressstrain curve. To graph stressstrain curves,
synchronized data on force applied, sample displacement,
and sample cross-sectional area are all required. Typical
laboratory equipment (such as the MTS 858; Eden Prairie,
MN) capable of collecting these data is both expensive and
cumbersome, characteristics that generally prohibit taking
this equipment to the eld.
Hardness (H), on the other hand, is easy to test in the
eld using inexpensive hand-held durometers that utilize the Shore hardness scale. Many researchers have
used H as a proxy for the amount of force needed to process food materials (e.g., Yamashita, 1996, 1998). However, H is not a discrete property in itself, but rather an
amalgamation of several other material properties acting
at a specimens surface, including E (Richards, 1961;
Strait, 1997), such that it is likely that Shore H covaries
positively with E. The purpose of this investigation is to
describe a bivariate relationship between Shore H and
E, determine the types of food materials in which this
relationship is manifested, and determine the optimal
type of durometer for this application.
Before proceeding, it is important to mention that
portable materials testers are currently available and
have been successfully utilized in eld studies. The Darvell

tester (Darvell et al., 1996) and the recently produced

Lucas tester (www.lucasscientic.com) are examples. Both
of these portable units are capable of deriving elastic modulus and hardness directly, as well as toughness (another
important material property not addressed in this article).
These units are preferable alternatives for eld researchers
who have reliable access to a power source in the eld,
and can provide continuous protection from environmental
hazards (e.g., water and humidity). Their cost is not
trivial, however, and there are conceivable contexts in the
eld in which their use is inconvenientsuch as sampling
during daily or extended forays away from base camp,
where a portable durometer may be more practical.

C 2011
V

WILEY PERIODICALS, INC.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Elastic modulus (E), as well as two different hardness
(H) measures (Shore-A and -D), were collected from samples of 28 different biological materials (see Appendix for
all materials and measures). Specimen samples were
cubed using a BuehlerIsomet low-speed precision saw
(Evanston, IL) so as to minimize specimen surface curvature. E data were collected under compression using an
MTS 858 testing system following protocols described by
Grant sponsor: NSF BCS; Grant numbers: 0922429, 0921770,
0922414.
*Correspondence to: James D. Pampush, Department of Anthropology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611.
E-mail: jpampush@u.edu
Received 11 May 2011; accepted 11 September 2011
DOI 10.1002/ajpa.21628
Published online 12 October 2011 in Wiley Online Library
(wileyonlinelibrary.com).

CONVERTING SHORE HARDNESS INTO E

Williams et al. (2005). E for each material was sampled
a minimum of 10 times to ensure sampling accuracy;
averages over the separate trials were used for analysis.
The need for repeated sampling is due to material inconsistencies inherent among biological specimens (see Williams et al., 2005).
H data were collected using Hoto Instruments (Northbrook, IL) Shore-A and -D durometers (Fig. 1). The two
types of durometers have signicantly different tips;
with the Shore-A durometer having a rounded blunt
tip (Fig. 2a), and the Shore-D durometer having a
sharp conical tip (Fig. 2b). Sampling with durometers
is conducted by completely and monotonically depressing
the durometer tip into the surface of a specimen.

651

Each specimen was sampled a minimum of 10 times

with both durometers. H from Shore-A and -D durometers was compared with E for each sample to determine
the correlation (if any) between Shore H and E.
Initial analyses demonstrated high degrees of variability
in the compressive behavior of the various specimens
sampled, and a dichotomy in the abilities of the Shore-A
and -D durometers to capture H in different material
types. Thus, to more accurately describe the relationship
between E and H, the sampled materials were segregated
into three groups, largely on the abilities of the two durometers to characterize their hardness: 1) harder-stiffer
materials, 2) softer-pliable materials, and 3) crossover
materials which are intermediate in their behavior and
used in analyses with both of the two prior categories (see
Appendix). All statistical analyses were run in the free,
open source R platform (R Development Core Team, 2007).

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Correlation between Shore-A hardness and E is not significant for the materials we sampled. Although Shore-A durometers effectively capture hardness diversity in
softer-pliable materials, these measurements are not
accurately reective of stiffness. Shore-D durometer

Fig. 1. Hoto Instruments durometers.

Fig. 2. (a) Shore-A durometer tip and (b) Shore-D durometer tip.

Fig. 3. Graphical relationship between log(E) and Shore-D measures of only the harder-stiffer and crossover materials for which
conversion from Shore-D scale to E is most reliable. Curve tted with least-squares approach.

American Journal of Physical Anthropology

652

PAMPUSH ET AL.
TABLE 1. Demonstration of conversion formula, illustrating differences arising from structural complexity of food items

Food item
Sacoglottis gabonensis
Coula edulis

Shore-D

Predicted E

Actual E 6 SD

Percent prediction errora

78.3
65.6

760.84 MPa
434.20 MPa

285.31 6 109.51 MPa

331.91 6 155.60 MPa

62.49%
23.55%

Percent prediction error is calculated as {(observed E 2 predicted E)/predicted E 3 100} following Smith (1984).

measurements do accurately predict E (Fig. 3), but only

in harder-stiffer materials. Unlike Shore-A durometers,
Shore-D durometers do not accurately assess H in softer
materials.
Among the harder-stiffer materials, the correlation
between Shore-D measurements and E are statistically
signicant (R2 5 0.8054, F 5 6.1204, P \ 0.0001). The
correlation is described by the formula:
log10 E 0:3242D0:501
where D is the average Shore-D durometer measure and E
is in MPa. The conversion formula exhibits a typical percent prediction error (Smith, 1984) greater than 50% with
the least amount of error at 4.72% (pressure-treated pine)
and the most amount of error at 116.80% (southern pine).
This relationship permits eld primatologists to approximate stiffness variation in the eld quickly and inexpensively. At the least, without using the conversion formula,
Shore-D durometers effectively identify foods that warrant
more sophisticated testing with existing eld devices (e.g.,
Darvell or Lucas testers).
Selecting the appropriate durometer type for sampling
primate foods is important. A particular durometer type
has a nite range over which it can accurately characterize hardness. As such, separate durometer types are
designed to sample different classes of materials (i.e.,
plastics or rubbers). As noted above, Shore-D durometers
cannot accurately assess H in materials that tend to be
relatively soft. However, research on primate feeding
behaviors has shown that food items in the extreme high
end of hardness and stiffnesseven if less preferred
(i.e., fallback foods)are hypothesized to be the major
drivers of primate masticatory anatomy (Kay, 1981; Kinzey and Norconk, 1990; Lambert et al., 2004; Lee et al.,
2010). Thus, while the accurate sampling range for
Shore-D durometers may not capture data in the softer
range of a primates diet, Shore-D durometers are capable of characterizing the hardness and stiffness of the
food materials that are most mechanically challenging to
consume and may therefore underlie feeding selective
pressures.
Durometer usage is not without methodological concerns. Maintaining specimen stability during testing, the
choice of sampling surface, and the technique of depressing the durometer tip into the food item all inuence
durometer readings. Many of the food items primates
eat are structurally complex composites made of materials with varying properties. Sampling from the softer
portions of such food items may not accurately assess
the maximum material resistance encountered in masticating the item. Therefore, it is important to keep track
of which portions of the food are masticated, preorally
processed, or avoided altogetherand the choice of
durometer sampling surface should reect the processing
stage of research interest. Additionally, durometer tips
need to be completely and monotonically depressed into
the sample; durometer tips depressed too quickly into a
food sample will register Shore-D measures higher than
American Journal of Physical Anthropology

the true properties of the specimen, and trials that are

incompletely depressed will register measures lower
than the true properties.
Because of the above concerns, we recommend a procedure to follow: 1) select and/or prepare a smooth and available surface to sample on the food item, be sure that the
specimens edges will not alter the durometers readings.
2) Stabilize the specimen on a stiff and sturdy workspace
with the sampling surface upwards. 3) Monotonically and
completely depress the durometer into the sampling surface; the hilt of the durometer should contact the specimen
indicating a complete sampling stroke. 4) Repeat many
times, recording the measures, but do not sample the same
surface too denselythis will create lower durometer
measures. With practice, intra- and interobserver error can
be reduced to the point that these sources of error are minimal. For example, in successive summers of sampling primate foods using Shore-A durometers in Ta Forest, Cote
dIvoire different investigators (WSM and RMC) show good
congruence of food-specic hardness (R2 5 0.889 for N 5 7
plant species). Intraindividual error in the eld is also tolerable (R2 50.876 for N 5 7 plant species, samples taken
1-year apart).
The difference between structural E and material E is
of additional concern, since this represents a potential
source of confusion. Structural E measures include not
just the material stiffness, but also the architecture and
material arrangement of the entire specimen/sample.
Durometers are incapable of incorporating porosity or
other structural elements into their sampling measures,
and are thus incapable of assessing stiffness at the
structural level except for the most homogeneous samples. For example, the stiffness of a structurally complex
food item such as Sacoglottis gabonensisa hard, sacculated tropical nut commonly consumed by sooty mangabeys (Cercocebus atys) in the Ta Forest (McGraw et al.,
2011)is overestimated by our conversion formula (i.e.,
the whole-nut stiffness determined by conventional
mechanical testing is less than that implied by Shore-D
hardness). In other hard foods such as Coula edulisa
simple spheroid nut with a thick, hard shell occasionally
eaten by sooty mangabeysconversions to E from ShoreD are more accurate (Table 1).
In summary, Shore durometers are inexpensive, highly
portable and have utility for eld research. Shore-D
durometer measurements provide a useful proxy for estimating elastic modulus (E) in harder-stiffer primate food
items, and we provide an empirically-derived conversion formula to estimate E from Shore-D hardness (H). Shore-D
measures on structurally simple food items are most
reliably converted into E. Their utility is somewhat more
limited in estimating E in structurally complex food
items, but at the very least can identify the primate food
items worthy of further investigation. Shore-A durometers
cannot effectively capture H in food items at the higher end
of hardness, which are likely to be food items asserting the
highest mechanical demands on primate masticatory anatomy. Shore-A hardness measures can differentiate between
hard and soft foods but cannot be reliably converted to

653

CONVERTING SHORE HARDNESS INTO E

E. Therefore, we recommend Shore-A durometers for surveying foods only in soft-diet species, and for studies that
do not require information on stiffness. Finally, we encourage interested researchers to continue building on our initial
efforts presented here by helping standardize procedures
and improving conversion formulae.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors thank Ms. Susan Stewart and Mr. John
Boles, who provided some of the materials sampled in
this research. Paul Morse, Michael Granatosky, and Ana
Duque are thanked for their skilled assistance in UF
Anthropologys Skeletal Biomechanics and Morphometrics Laboratory. Two anonymous reviewers provided
insightful critique and commentary.

LITERATURE CITED
Agrawal KR, Lucas PW, Prinz JF, Bruce IC. 1997. Mechanical
properties of foods responsible for resisting food breakdown in
the human mouth. Arch Oral Biol 42:19.
Darvell BW, Lee PKD, Yuen TDB, Lucas PW. 1996. A portable
fracture toughness tester for biological materials. Meas Sci
Technol 7:954962.
Kay RF. 1981. The nut-crackersa new theory of the adaptations
of the Ramapithecinae. Am J Phys Anthropol 55:141151.
Kinzey WG, Norconk MA. 1990. Hardness as a basis of fruit choice
in two sympatric primates. Am J Phys Anthropol 81:515.

Lambert JE, Chapman CA, Wrangham RW, Conklin-Brittain

NL. 2004. Hardness of cercopithecine foods: implications for
the critical function of enamel thickness in exploiting fallback
foods. Am J Phys Anthropol 125:363368.
Lee JJ-W, Morris D, Constantino PJ, Lucas PW, Smith TM,
Lawn BR. 2010. Properties of tooth enamel in great apes.
Acta Biomater 6:45604565.
Lucas PW, Luke DA. 1984. Chewing it over: basic principles of
food breakdown. In: Chivers DJ, Wood BA, Bilsborough A,
editors. Food acquisition and processing in primates. New
York: Plenum Press. p 283301.
McGraw WS, Vick AE, Daegling DJ. 2011. Sex and age differences in the diet and ingestive behaviors of sooty mangabeys
(Cercocebus atys) in the Ta Forest, Ivory Coast. Am J Phys
Anthropol 144:140153.
Richards CW. 1961. Engineering materials science. Belmont,
CA: Wadsworth Publishing.
Smith RJ. 1984. Allometric scaling in comparative biology: problems of concept and method. Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp
Physiol 246:R150R160.
Strait SG. 1997. Tooth use and the physical properties of food.
Evol Anthropol 5:199211.
Williams SH, Wright BW, Truong VD, Daubert CR, Vinyard CJ.
2005. Mechanical properties of foods used in experimental studies of primate masticatory function. Am J Primatol 67:329346.
Yamashita N. 1996. Seasonality and site specicity of mechanical dietary patterns in two malagasy lemur families (Lemuridae and Indriidae). Int J Primatol 17:355387.
Yamashita N. 1998. Functional dental correlates of food properties in ve Malagasy lemur species. Am J Phys Anthropol
106:169188.

APPENDIX RESULTS OF SHORE H AND E SAMPLING FOR ALL MATERIALS

Material
Almond nut
Black walnut wood
Cherry wood
Chick pea
Coconut husk
Coula edulis
Cypress wood
Dry bass wood
Pressure-treated pine
Red oak wood
Sacoglottis gabonensis
Southern pine wood
Spruce wood
Western Cedar
Wood
Wet Bass Wood
Avocado pit
Balance bar
Avocado meat
Broccoli shoot
Carrot
Clif bar-carrot cake
Coconut meat
Mushroom cap
Mushroom stem
Peach meat
Radish
Turnip core
Yam
Yucca
a
b
c

Material
category
Harder-stiffer
materials

Crossover
materials
Softer-pliable
materials

E 6 SD

Shore-A 6 SD

Shore-D 6 SD

Estimated Ea

PPEb

6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6

75.69 6 3.50

16.78 6 1.58
63.10 6 4.06
57.50 6 3.17
55.22 6 10.20
75.23 6 8.60
65.64 6 8.31
39.50 6 4.35
42.33 6 6.02
40.10 6 2.76
45.90 6 3.78
78.30 6 10.19
30.50 6 2.87
45.27 6 3.60
41.50 6 1.78

21.47
385.47
294.00
262.31
667.09
434.20
110.93
131.04
114.96
160.27
760.84
62.60
154.78
124.82

43.15
57.15
68.73
271.38
59.96
223.55
18.86
70.16
4.72
93.61
262.49
116.80
239.30
233.03

30.74
605.78
496.09
75.05
1067.10
331.93
131.86
222.98
120.39
310.31
285.37
135.72
93.94
83.59

7.44
230.27
224.34
28.00
146.62
155.60
58.83
16.42
47.42
138.28
109.51
35.81
64.02
19.39

c
c
c

88.25 6 8.25
90.23 6 3.51
c
c
c
c
c
c
c
c

161.54 6 57.96

92.36 6 4.67

33.38 6 5.09

75.83

113.02

12.55 6 1.18
12.48 6 4.94

77.13 6 4.32
64.60 6 5.94

16.00 6 32.71
14.20 6 4.81

19.97
16.78

237.13
225.61

8.33
3.91
6.38
2.32
14.06
1.57
1.81
0.45
3.52
3.72
7.12
4.41

6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6

1.24
0.25
1.48
0.70
0.97
0.65
0.74
0.04
1.48
1.45
1.39
0.36

45.70
16.89
38.64
66.80
54.51

6
6
6
6
6

3.72
3.80
7.04
7.29
7.39

1.45
15.43
28.68
40.70
44.28

6
6
6
6
6

c
c
c

13.20 6 6.83
3.57 6 3.16
c
c

1.87
5.05
7.02
5.39
4.49

c
c
c
c
c

Estimated E calculated for the harder-stiffer and crossover materials based on the formula: log(E) 5 0.3242(D)0.501.
PPE is percent prediction error, calculated from Smith (1984) as: {(observed E 2 predicted E)/predicted E 3 100}.
Denotes materials that fell outside the measurement capabilities of the durometer.

American Journal of Physical Anthropology