Two main toughening mechanisms of nacre are of special interests including the multilayer platelet structures and the interfacial waviness. The multiple laminate structure of nacre is composed of polygonal tablets bonded with organic adhesives to maximize its load-sharing capability. While the hard mineral tablets provide structural rigidity, the soft organic polymer matrix provides the mechanisms to mitigate damages and dissipate energy. This chapter presents an investigation on the influences of the platelet architecture on the blast resistance of two different nacre-like composite panels. A novel three-dimensional model of an aluminum/vinyl ester composite structure that closely mimics multilayer nacre’s platelet structure is proposed. Vinyl ester cohesive and adhesive layers are introduced between nacre-mimetic polygonal aluminum tablets and layers, respectively, to simulate the bonding and delamination process. The performances of the nacre-like composite structures under blast loading are evaluated in terms of maximum deformation, damage distributions, as well as dissipated energy. The influences of size and shape of the nacre-mimetic tablets, as well as the number of composite laminates on the blast resistance of the composite, are also investigated. Results reveal the importance of tablet size and number of laminates as opposed to the insignificant influences of tablet overlapping.
