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In silico tensile tests and design of hierarchical graphene fibres and composites
Author(s) -
Bosia Federico,
Pugno Nicola M.
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
physica status solidi (b)
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.51
H-Index - 109
eISSN - 1521-3951
pISSN - 0370-1972
DOI - 10.1002/pssb.201200977
Subject(s) - materials science , composite material , graphene , stiffness , ultimate tensile strength , toughness , volume fraction , carbon nanotube , composite number , elastic modulus , bundle , nanotechnology
In this contribution, we apply a hierarchical fibre bundle model (HFBM), previously developed to estimate the mechanical properties of multiscale carbon nanotube (CNT)‐based structures, to the case of graphene macroscopic cables. The nonlinear elastic properties of graphene and its exceptional intrinsic strength, with mean Young's modulus of 1 TPa, third‐order elastic stiffness of −2.0 TPa and intrinsic strength of 130 GPa, are drawn from recent experimental studies. The model allows to derive macroscopic characteristics like strength, stiffness, toughness as a function of hierarchical structure, starting from statistically distributed properties at the nanoscale and without the introduction of additional ad hoc parameters. The influence of the presence of defects in the graphene bundles is evaluated. We also analyse the properties of graphene‐reinforced composites, including the influence of the volume fraction of a ductile polymeric matrix. We show that the composite properties can be engineered to optimize strength and/or stiffness, and that the present model can be a useful tool to help pursue this objective