Conch-shell-inspired porcelain ceramic tile/Kevlar fabric composites with excellent combination of strength, toughness and shock resistance

For various engineering applications in public, ceramics with exceptional strength, toughness and shock resistance are imminently required, but traditional ceramics struggle to meet these demands due to their fragility. Inspired by the shape of natural conch shells, this work offers a simple hot press approach to fabricate layered porcelain ceramic tile/Kevlar fabric composites, yielding excellent mechanical properties and the capacity for non-catastrophic failure. It was concluded that composites’ excellent mechanical performance is attributed to the resin/fabric content. The composite with the resin/fabric content of 45.5 vol.% had an outstanding combination of high strength (310.5 ± 6.2MPa) and excellent fracture toughness (6.83 ± 0.09MPa•m1/2), whereas the sample with 36.4 vol.% resin/fabric content had the maximal impact energy of 2.04 ± 0.09 J, which is much better than those of traditional ceramics. The strong resistance to fracture is a result of the proper interfacial bonding and the presence of elastic component, which enables toughening mechanisms such as crack deflection, fibre pull-out and interfacial debonding. This finding provides useful guidance for replacing lowperformance ceramics in engineering applications with cost-effective ceramic composites.