Nanoscale dynamic mechanical analysis on interfaces of biological composites

Biological composites incorporate structural arrays of rigid-elastic reinforcements made of minerals or crystalline biopolymers, which are connected by thin, compliant, and viscoelastic macromolecular matrix material. The near-interface regions of these biological composites grant them energy dissipation capabilities against dynamic mechanical loadings, which promote various biomechanical functions such as impact adsorption, fracture toughness, and mechanical signal filtering. Here, we employ theoretical modeling and finite-element simulations to analyze the mechanical response of the near-interface in biological composites to nanoscale dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA). We identified the dominating load-bearing mechanisms of the near-interface region and employed these insights to introduce simple semi-empirical formulations for approaching the mechanical properties (storage and loss moduli) of the biological composite from the nanoscale DMA results. Our analysis paves the way for the nanomechanical characterization of biological composites in diverse natural materials systems, which can also be employed for bioinspired and biomedical configurations.