Biomimetic Approach to Gradient-Helicoidal Laminates for Impact-Resistant Applications

Composite-based battery enclosure is considered to be an effective solution to protect the automotive battery cells from physical impacts. Conventional lay-up design schemes employed for enhancing the impact resistance of composite laminates have been proven inadequate due to their inability to realize the prevention mechanism against asymmetric damage modes. Inspired by the gradient arrangement of Bouligand structure observed in the exoskeletons of crustaceans, such as Mantis Shrimp and American Lobster, this work applies the gradient-helicoidal (GH) design strategies to the fabrication of high-performance composite laminates. Notably, the out-of-plane mechanical responses show that the GH configurations possess enhanced performances compared with the traditional quasi-isotropic laminates. The difference in the regional arrangement of structural parameters alters the mechanical characteristics and damage mechanisms of GH configurations. Specifically, the GH-I configuration mimicking the dactyl of Mantis Shrimp successfully resists the damage initiation in specific regions under the short duration impact loading, which is reflected in a 52