Owing to the unique non-self-similar hierarchical microstructure, enamel achieves the balance of high stiffness and toughness, and in turn provides important ideas for the bio-inspired materials design. In this study, a multiscale numerical study has been conducted to investigate whether the property of high stiffness and large energy dissipation could be duplicated in engineering materials through certain material design principles. Motivated by the structure of enamel, the bio-inspired materials consisting of hard and soft phases were considered, and the designing parameters including the cross-sectional shape, volume fraction, and inclination angle of the reinforcement, and other three parameters related to the waviness of the reinforcement were taken into account. It was found that by employing the non-self-similar hierarchical structure, the designed composites exhibited the balance between stiffness and toughness, which has not been achieved in many engineering materials yet. Furthermore, the influences of the aforementioned designing parameters on the mechanical performance of the composites have been elucidated. The findings of this study have provided a guideline for designing bio-inspired composites achieving the balance between stiffness and toughness.

由于独特的非自相似的分层微观结构，搪瓷达到了高刚度和韧性的平衡，进而为生物启发性材料设计提供了重要的思路。在这项研究中，已进行了多尺度数值研究，以研究通过某些材料设计原理，高刚度和大能量耗散的特性是否可以在工程材料中复制。受釉质结构的影响，考虑了由硬相和软相组成的生物启发材料，设计参数包括横截面形状，体积分数和增强物的倾斜角度，以及与波纹度相关的其他三个参数考虑到钢筋的数量。发现通过采用非自相似的层次结构，设计的复合材料展现出刚度和韧性之间的平衡，这在许多工程材料中尚未实现。此外，已经阐明了上述设计参数对复合材料的机械性能的影响。这项研究的发现为设计生物启发的复合材料提供了指导，以实现刚度和韧性之间的平衡。