Abstract
An interlaminar peeling test was conducted for an A. dichotoma beetle fore-wing with the interlaminar reinforcement mechanism being investigated. The load-displacement curves indicated the presence of many load peaks with the number of load peaks being equal to the number of trabeculae found in the chitin fiber laminae. This result suggested that each trabecula fracture contributed to a single load peak, which then combined to provide the interlaminar strength. The increment of interlaminar strength due to the trabecular in the chitin fiber laminae was approximately 30 times in a local region and 3 times in a whole region larger compared to that of the chitin fiber laminae without trabeculae. The chitin fibers were found to be connected between the chitin fiber laminae with the trabeculae being curved and continuous, whilst the trabeculae bonded chitin fiber laminae were distributed in two dimensions within the chitin fiber lamina plane. Furthermore, a strong reinforcement mechanism in nature was clarified with a model for the reinforcement mechanism being proposed.
