Modeling Elastic Modulus of Polymer/CNT Nanocomposites Using a Modified Halpin-Tsai Micromechanical Model and Artificial Neural Networks

Carbon nanotubes (CNT) have extremely high stiffness, resilience and strength, and many researchers believe that they are the ideal reinforcing fibers for an entirely new class of composite materials [1]. There is great interest in the modeling and simulation of the CNT composites in order to characterize their mechanical properties for potential engineering applications. Consequently, researchers have been proposed and tested different methods such as molecular dynamics (MD) [2], continuum mechanics [3]or a combination of this methods to model this nanocomposites[4]. The MD approach is necessary in the study of nanocomposites, especially for investigations of the local interactions of CNTs with matrix materials and interface properties [2]. But, the MD simulations at present are very time consuming and limited due to limitation of the computing power. The Halpin-Tsai micromechanical model has long been popular for predicting of properties of short fiber composites [5].