  Cantilevered beams are of immense importance as structural and sensorial
members for a number of applications. Endowing tailorable elasticity can have
wide ranging engineering ramification. Such tailorability could be possible
using some type of spatial gradation in the beam's material or cross section.
However, these often require extensive additive and subtractive material
processing or specialized casts. In this letter, we demonstrate an alternative
bio inspired mechanical pathway, which is based on exploiting the nonlinearity
that would arise from a functionally graded distribution of biomimetic scales
on the surface using an analytical approach. This functional gradation is
geometrically sourced and could arise from either spatial or angular gradation
of scales. We analyze such a functionally graded cantilever beam under uniform
loading. In comparison with uniformly distributed scales, we find significant
differences in bending stiffness for both spatial and angular gradations.
Spatial and angular functional gradation share some universality but also sharp
contrasts in their effect on the underlying beam. A combination of both types
of gradation in the structure can be used to alternatively increase or decrease
stiffness and therefore a pathway to tailor the elasticity of a cantilever beam
relatively easily. These results give rise to an architected framework for
designing and optimizing the topography of leveraged solids.
