Research Projects

Fish scales, with their unique defense mechanism and hierarchical arrangement, have been the focus of research for over 450 million years. These structures exhibit high penetration resistance and fracture toughness, leading to the development of penetration-resistant materials inspired by fish-scale hierarchical structures. The teleost fish-scale arrangement has gained attention among various fish-scale microstructures and hierarchical structures, leading to the development of battlefield armour like dragon-skin-armour. However, these armours have been found to be insufficient for battlefield use due to high weight, debonding of interconnected disks, and poor performance under multiple bullet impacts. A modified armour design combining two ceramic and ultra-high molecular weight polyethene (UHMWPE) layers in a single disk has been proposed. This design is expected to enhance ballistic properties compared to a two-layered disk and provide higher deformations than one sub-layer of UHMWPE. Mimicking the entire fish scale structure can provide flexible body armours with ballistic resistance properties at multiple bullet hits.