Princeton Materials Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544 Some biological materials exhibit structural robustness, despite the brittle nature of their constituents.Nacre (mother-of-pearl), the pearly internal layer of many mollusc shells, is addressed in this study. This material comprises about 95% aragonite tablets (a mineral form of CaC03), The polygonal tablets were glued with only a few percent of biological macromolecules into layered structure. The goal of the present study is to elucidate the basic inelastic deformation mechanisms.
Typical stress /strain curves in tension and compression are plotted in Fig. 1. All tensile curves exhibited extensive inelastic deformation. After testing, the samples were initially examined using a stereo microscope (Leica MZ8) and a metallurgical microscope (Leica MEF4M) followed by analysis of the structural details using scanning electron microscopy (Philip XL-30). Optical imaging provided a visualization of the inelastic zone, manifest as white tension lines.