Investigation on Screwy Microstructure of Solid-Trough Shell

Scanning electron microscope (SEM) observation shows that Solid-trough shell is a kind of bioceramic composite consisting of laminated aragonite and organic materials. The aragonite layers are parallel with the surface of the shell and consist of numerous thin and long aragonite fibers. The aragonite fibers in an arbitrary aragonite layers possess different directions and compose a kind of screwy microstructure. The maximum pullout force of the screwy microstructure was investigated and compared with that of parallel microstructure based on their representative models. It shows that the maximum pullout force of the screwy microstructure is markedly larger than that of the parallel microstructure, which was experimentally validated.