Fast stress wave attenuation in bioinspired composites with distributed soft particles modulating hard matrices

Abstract

Fast stress wave attenuation in composites is highly desired in many industry fields. Biological composites such as those in the beak of woodpeckers provide great inspiration for us to develop their synthetic counterparts with similar mechanical functions. Accordingly, bioinspired designs of composites with distributed soft particles are put forward in the paper, and their performance in attenuating stress wave is investigated through FEM simulations. Subjected to projectile impacts, the bioinspired composites not only absorb more impact energy but also delay and attenuate the impact-induced stress wave very efficiently. The simultaneous improvement of the two aspects of impact-resistant performance in a single material design should be highly desired in many industry fields. Further, the influences of the inclusion volume fraction, impedance, shape and distribution pattern are systematically investigated and general principles of design are drawn. The findings and conclusions can not only provide useful guidelines for the design of bioinspired composites with high protection function from impact loading but also help understand the working mechanisms of natural biological composites to resist impact loadings.