Biomimetic composites inspired by venous leaf

Abstract

A typical plant leaf can be idealized as a composite having three principal fibers: the central mid-fiber corresponding to the mid-rib, straight parallel secondary fibers attached to the mid-fiber representing the secondary veins, and then another set of parallel fibers emanating from the secondary fibers mimicking the tertiary fibers embedded in a matrix material. This paper introduces a biomimetic composite design inspired by the morphology of venous leafs and investigates the effects of venation morphologies on the in-plane mechanical properties of the biomimetic composites using finite element method. The mechanical properties such as Young’s moduli, Poisson’s ratio, and yield stress under uniaxial loading of the resultant composite structures was studied and the effect of different fiber architectures on these properties was investigated. To this end, two broad types of architectures were used both having similar central main fiber but differing in either having only secondary fibers or additional tertiary fibers. The fiber and matrix volume fractions were kept constant and a comparative parametric study was carried out by varying the inclination of the secondary fibers. The results show that the elastic modulus of composite in the direction of main fiber increases linearly with increasing the angle of the secondary fibers. Furthermore, the elastic modulus is enhanced if the secondary fibers are closed, which mimics composites with closed cellular fibers. In contrast, the elastic modulus of composites normal to the main fiber ( x direction) exponentially decreases with the increase of the angle of the secondary fibers and it is little affected by having secondary fibers closed. Similar results were obtained for the yield stress of the composites. The results also indicate that Poisson’s ratio linearly increases with the secondary fiber angle. The results also show that for a constant fiber volume fraction, addition of various tertiary fibers may not significantly enhance the mechanical properties of the composites. The mechanical properties of the composites are mainly dominated by the secondary fibers. Finally, a simple model was proposed to predict these behaviors.