Nano-scale fracture toughness and behavior of graphene/epoxy interface

Abstract

Atomistic simulations are performed to investigate the nano-scale interfacial fracture toughness between graphene and epoxy. Nano-mechanical properties of graphene and epoxy are initially studied using molecular dynamics simulations. A novel method is suggested to accurately model the behavior of the graphen/epoxy interface during the curing process of the epoxy as a function of temperature. The computed interfacial fracture energy is computed at about 0.203 J/m2, which is in good agreement with available experimental data. It is also shown that the adhesion between cured epoxy and graphene layer increases the pre-existing waviness of the 2-dimensional graphene sheet in a 3-dimensional space. The waviness amplitude is computed to be about 3.23 Å.

A grillage model for predicting wrinkles in annular graphene under circular shearing

“…22 Moreover, the COMPASS potential has been widely used to model the carbon-carbon bond of graphene. [32][33][34][35][36][37] The second reason is that the grillage model is anisotropic and the materials properties are highly dependent on the deformation modes. Wrinkles in graphene herein are generally nonsymmetrical deformation.…”

Fracture toughness of the sidewall fluorinated carbon nanotube-epoxy interface

“…27 The interfacial fracture energy for the system was computed to be about 0.203 J/m 2 , a value that was found to be in good agreement with the results of the pristine MWNT pullout experiments conducted from the Epon 828 TM matrix. 21 Fig.…”

“…The waviness of pristine graphene at the pristine graphene-epoxy interface was computed earlier and found to be about 3.2 Å . 27 In this study, the waviness of fluorinated graphene at the fluorinated graphene-epoxy interface was computed to be about 7.5 Å , thus indicating that stronger adhesive forces existed at the fluorinated graphene-epoxy interface compared to the pristine grapheneepoxy interface. Note that in the case of both pristine and fluorinated graphene, the sheets were assumed to be atomically flat prior to contact with epoxy.…”

Interfacial Interactions in 1D and 2D Nanostructure-Based Material Systems

“…The van der Waals force-based interfacial binding interaction between graphene and polymer matrices [174,175] and the role of the surface functionalization on the interfacial strength [176] are investigated using MD simulations. Figure 10.20a shows the results of the interfacial strength between graphene and polyethylene polymer by performing a peeling test to remove the graphene from the polymer surface through applying a force normal to the graphene-polymer binding interface [174].…”