In recent years, biological materials have been a source of inspiration for new structural designs, as their composition and microstructures often provide excellent mechanical properties such as stiffness, strength, and toughness. The hoof is one such natural structure found in many animals (horses, pigs, goats, and others), and it is known for its high impact resistance. In this paper, we study the effective elastic moduli of an equine hoof wall by modeling it as a hierarchical composite material while assuming a separation of scales. The length scales include the macroscale (hoof wall), mesoscale (0.1-0.5mm, tubules within an anisotropic matrix), sub-mesoscale (50-100 um, single tubule and wall matrix consisting of multiple lamella layers), microscale (10-50um, single lamella consisting of cells), sub-microscale (10nm-10 um, microfibrils in disk-shaped cells), and nanoscale (1-10nm, crystalline intermediate filaments embedded in an amorphous matrix). We use various micromechanics modeling techniques to find the elastic moduli of the equine hoof at each of these length scales. These models focus on the structure of each individual scale and are analytical in nature. The results will serve as a framework for designing impact-resistant hoof-inspired materials and structures.  



On the micromechanics modeling of elastic moduli of horse hooves at different structural scales

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