Abstract
In order to develop a new silkworm race that produces strong silk fibers, we investigated the physical properties of the cocoon filaments of our breeding strains, which includes a wide variation in filament size. Our strains showed the largest variation in tensile strength (3.31-4.46 gf/d), being dependent on filament size, with the weakest cocoon filament being that of “PCG”, which spins an ordinary size filament (3.8 denier). The tensile strength of the PCG cocoon filament correlated negatively with the sample length, suggesting many fragile points on the filament. A non-uniform shape with many thin constrictions was also observed in PCG cocoon filaments under microscopic analysis.
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