Date of download: 10/23/2017 Copyright © ASME. All rights reserved. From: Highly Enhanced Damping Figure of Merit in Biomimetic Hierarchical Staggered Composites J. Appl. Mech. 2014;81(5):051015-051015-5. doi:10.1115/1.4026239 Figure Legend: Schematic illustration of the mechanistic model for hierarchical staggered structures. (a) Self-similar hierarchical model established for bone-like structures. The hard platelets disperse in a soft matrix and assemble in a self-similar way. (b) The loading transfer path in the staggered structure, which is indicated by arrows. The external force is eventually sustained by large shear deformation in the soft matrix, which results in an enhancement of stiffness. This tension-shear transition also gives rise to comparably high damping in this structure. (c) Tension region between the ends of two adjacent hard platelets. The position of hard platelets before deformation is indicated by dash lines. The effect of this region can be simply incorporated by introducing a factor α in Eqs. (1) and (A1). (d) Force equilibrium on one hard platelet and the tensile stress distribution in it. The maximum tensile stress σm occurs at the center of a hard platelet.