Natural dermal armors are serving as a source of inspiration in the pursuit of “next-generation” structural materials. Although the dynamic strain response of these materials is arguably the most relevant to their performance as armors, limited work has been performed in this area. Here, uniaxial tension and transverse puncture tests were performed on specimens obtained from the scales of Asian carp over strain rates spanning seven decades, from 10⁻⁴ to 10³ s⁻¹. The importance of anatomical variations was explored by comparing the performance of scales from the head, middle and tail regions. In both loading orientations, the scales exhibited a significant increase in the resistance to failure with loading rate. The rate sensitivity was substantially higher for transverse loading than for in-plane tension, with average strain rate sensitivity exponents for measures of the toughness of 0.35 and 0.08, respectively. Spatial variations in the properties were largest in the puncture responses, and scales from the head region exhibited the greatest resistance to puncture overall. The results suggest that the layered microstructure of fish scales is most effective at resisting puncture, rather than in-plane tension, and its effectiveness increases with rate of loading. X-ray microCT showed that delamination of plies in the internal elasmodine and stretching of the fibrils were key mechanisms of energy dissipation in response to puncture loading. Understanding contributions from the microstructure to this behavior could guide the development of flexible engineered laminates for penetration resistance and other related applications.

在追求“下一代”结构材料时，天然的真皮装甲是灵感的来源。尽管可以说这些材料的动态应变响应与它们作为装甲的性能最相关，但在该领域所做的工作有限。在这里，对从亚洲鲤鱼鳞片获得的标本进行了单轴拉伸和横向穿刺试验，其应变率跨越了十个十年，从10 ^-4到10 ³ s ^-1。通过比较头部，中部和尾部区域的鳞片性能，探索了解剖变异的重要性。在两个加载方向上，秤都显示出随着加载速率而对破坏的抵抗力显着增加。横向载荷的速率敏感性比平面内拉伸的速率敏感性高得多，其中平均应变速率敏感性指数的韧性分别为0.35和0.08。在穿刺响应中，性质的空间变化最大，并且从头部区域开始的鳞片总体上显示出对穿刺的最大抵抗力。结果表明，鱼鳞的分层微观结构最能抵抗穿刺，而不是平面张力，并且其有效性随负载率的增加而增加。X射线microCT显示，内部弹性纤维中层的分层和原纤维的拉伸是响应穿刺负荷而耗能的关键机制。了解微观结构对这种行为的贡献可以指导挠性工程层压板的开发，以用于抗渗透性和其他相关应用。