STUDY OF INTERFACIAL BEHAVIOR OF CNT/POLYMER COMPOSITE BY CFE METHOD

摘要

Since its discovery by Iijima in 1991 [1], carbon nanotube (CNT) has been expected to have many potential applications inspired by their superb physical and mechanical properties. However, the unavoidable poor interfacial strength between CNTs and polymers has been hindering their composites to fully achieve the desired mechanical properties. To put forward an effective solution, a number of atomic simulation methods have been implemented to study the CNT/polymer interface [2-4]. However, there is a hard barrier for these methods to study the macroscopic interface because of their huge calculation cost. Therefore, a proper method in macroscopic scale, which can help study the performance of the CNT/polymer interface, is necessary. In this paper, a cohesive zone model (CZM) in continuum finite element (CFE) method was adopted to investigate the deformation and fracture process of the interface between CNT and the epoxy matrix. The interface performance of the composite was discussed in transverse and longitudinal models separately. The influence of the interface characteristics on the effective mechanical properties of the CNT/polymer composite was analyzed in both cases. Furthermore, the effect of CNT arrangement on the interfacial fracture mechanism and effective mechanical properties of the CNT/polymer composite were also considered.