Biomimetic Staggered Composites with Highly Enhanced Energy Dissipation: Design, Modeling, and Test

TL;DR

This paper presents the design, modeling, and testing of biomimetic staggered composites inspired by bone and nacre, achieving significantly improved energy dissipation through innovative structure and materials.

Contribution

It introduces a new class of biomimetic composites with enhanced damping properties, combining 3D printing and theoretical modeling to optimize energy dissipation.

Findings

Loss modulus up to ~500 MPa, surpassing most polymers

Specific loss modulus up to 0.43 Km^2/s^2, among highest for damping materials

Damping enhancement due to shear deformation and rigid inclusion strengthening

Abstract

We investigate the damping enhancement in a class of biomimetic staggered composites via a combination of design, modeling, and experiment. In total, three kinds of staggered composites are designed by mimicking the structure of bone and nacre. These composite designs are realized by 3D printing a rigid plastic and a viscous elastomer simultaneously. Greatly-enhanced energy dissipation in the designed composites is observed from both the experimental results and theoretical prediction. The designed polymer composites have loss modulus up to ~500 MPa, higher than most of the existing polymers. In addition, their specific loss modulus (up to 0.43 $Km^2/s^2$) is among the highest of damping materials. The damping enhancement is attributed to the large shear deformation of the viscous soft matrix and the large strengthening effect from the rigid inclusion phase.