Molecular Dynamics Simulation of Cross-linked Graphene-Epoxy Nanocomposites

TL;DR

This study uses molecular dynamics simulations to analyze how the geometry and concentration of nanographene sheets affect the mechanical and interfacial properties of cross-linked graphene-epoxy nanocomposites.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed MD simulation approach to evaluate the influence of nanographene aspect ratio and concentration on nanocomposite properties, verified against literature data.

Findings

Elastic constants depend on nanographene geometry and concentration

Stress-strain response varies with unit cell structure

Interfacial forces are influenced by nanographene size and distribution

Abstract

This paper focuses on molecular dynamics (MD) modeling of graphene reinforced cross-linked epoxy (Gr-Ep) nanocomposite. The goal is to study the influence of geometry, and concentration of reinforcing nanographene sheet (NGS) on interfacial properties and elastic constants such as bulk Young's modulus, and shear modulus of Gr-Ep nanocomposites. The most typical cross-linked configuration was obtained in order to use in further simulations. The mechanical properties of this cross-linked structure were determined using MD simulations and the results were verified with those available in literatures. Graphene with different aspect ratios and concentrations (1%, 3% and 5%) were considered in order to construct amorphous unit cells of Gr-Ep nanocomposites. The Gr-Ep nanocomposites system undergoes NVT (constant number of atoms, volume and temperature) and NPT (constant number of atoms, pressure and temperature) ensemble with applied uniform strain field during MD simulation to obtain bulk Young's modulus and shear modulus. The stress-strain response was also evaluated for both amorphous and crystalline unit cells of Gr-Ep system under uni-axial deformation. The cohesive and pullout force vs. displacement response were determined for graphenes with different size. Hence as primary goal of this work, a parametric study using MD simulation was conducted for characterizing interfacial properties and elastic constants with different NGS aspect rations and volume fractions. The MD simulation results show reasonable agreement with available published data in the literature.