Finite Elements Analysis of the Effective Mechanical Properties of a Nano Scale Cubic Element of Epoxy Reinforced with Single Walled Carbon Nanotubes

摘要

The applications of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) in composite structures have increased widely in recent days, especially as reinforcement for weak matrices, because of their high mechanical properties. This paper studies the effect of inclusion of CNTs at volume fractions of 0.5% to 4% on the mechanical properties of an epoxy resin. A numerical analysis using finite element method (FEM) is conducted to investigate the mechanical properties of a nano scale cubic volume element (CVE), which is the binding matrix, combined with 3D beam elements which contain the tubes' properties. The results show that the stiffness of the nanocomposite is higher than that of the matrix by 29% to 133%.