Plant tissues as an inspiration for carbon reinforced concrete structures: morphology and mechanical behavior

Plants have evolved a multitude of different leaf shapes. The mechanical properties of leaves are defined by the internal composition of different tissues. Not many research efforts have been devoted to investigate biomechanical proper-ties of the peltate leaf shape. Complex fiber organizations in these type of leaves can serve as an inspiration for novel car -bon reinforced concrete structures. Due to the complex mor-phological anatomy of leaves, not all information about the mechanical behavior can be obtained from experiments. The-refore, in this contribution, we investigate the mechanical be-havior of peltate leaves of Stephania japonica by means of the numerical simulation. For the finite element simulations a con-tinuum mechanical material model is used. First, the numeri-cal results are compared with the experimental results. Then, the model is used to simulate the behavior of the plant tissues under various loading conditions. Furthermore, based on CT -data of leaf tissues some possible carbon reinforced concrete structures are proposed.