Erik,

it seems like an exotic material. I remember about some papers with sea shell ....

I will try find them.

AS

Dear Eric:

The following information might be usefel.

Researchers from the Center for Thermal Spray Research at Stony Brook University in New York recently reported the ability to use thermal-sprayed ceramic deposits as

templates for synthesis of ceramic–polymer composites with striking microstructure

and mechanical behavior similar to those observed in nacre (mother-of-pearl).

The paper: “Bio-inspired hybrid materials from spray formed ceramic templates” (DOI: 10.1002/adma.201500303) is published in Advanced Materials.

You should contact Sylvain Deville, who alredy successfully prepared such materials and published them in Nature Materials, amongts others. You can download his papers here :

http://sylvaindeville.net/publications/

Alain

The following two papers have reported mm-scale bio-mimic ceramics:

doi: 10.1126/science.1164865

doi: 10.1038/NMAT4089

You can find more papers on the hompage of Professor Ritchie (http://www.lbl.gov/ritchie/index.html)

Relating to second part of your question, I think that bending test will be preferable for determination of mechanical characteristics on 5-10 mm thick samples. The sound method of elastic modulus determination of ceramics are suitable too.

All the best.