Fig. 1. Shape-morphing strategy inspired by the architecture of nacre.

(A) Wrapping a flat sheet around a curved surface results in wrinkles. Introducing cuts to the sheet can avoid the generation of wrinkles but induce discontinuities in the resulting structures. (B) Schematic of the nacre architectures, the staggered “brick-and-mortar” microstructures enable the nacre to exhibit extraordinary mechanical performance. (C) Optimization of the cuts in multilayered plies avoids cuts overlapping at the same position upon stacking. Upon application of a tensile stress, the composite plies carry the tensile load while the matrix transfer the load between plies via shear, ensuring the integrity and the optimized strength of the resulting structures.