Improved strength and toughness of bioinspired Bouligand architecture composite by discontinuous carbon fiber

Abstract

Strength and toughness are a pair of incompatible contradictions for most structure materials, and exploring the combined optimization strategy of strength and toughness of materials is a frontier research topic in the field of lightweight structure materials. Here, inspired by natural organisms, a novel hierarchical structure design scheme of the lightweight material that combines the helical layered Bouligand architecture inside the mantis shrimp rods with the “brick-mortar” staggered laminated structure of shell nacre was proposed. The deformation failure and energy absorption characteristics of this composite were compared with those of a single helical laminated structure material under bending load. It shows that, in the process of deformation and failure, the samples with both “brick-mortar” staggered laminated structure and helical laminated structure can improve their internal stress distribution and load transfer efficiency, alleviate local stress concentration and delay material failure, so as to realize the optimization of material strength and toughness. These research results have positive guiding significance for the internal structure design and performance optimization of lightweight and high-strength/toughness materials.