Mechanical Characterizations of Saxidomus purpuratus Shells

摘要

A sort of biological shells (Saxidomus purpuratus), which belongs to Bivalve, was selected as the target material, and hardness and dynamic three point bending fatigue tests were conducted to examine its mechanical properties. Microhardness measurements showed that the inner layer is the hardest. The indentation on the specimen with a lower bending strength was damaged more seriously by the same load. Three point bending fatigue tests demonstrated that this kind of the shells with a special structure comprising mineral and organic matrix can experience the repeated loads instead of immediate breaking. The fatigue results on a single shell investigated here indicated that the fatigue strength is usually less than the static bending strength. Most of the fatigue lives of the specimens are less than 2×10~5 cycles. In addition, fatigue fracture surfaces are observed by scanning electron microscopy.