Modeling Considerations and Material Properties Evaluation in Analysis of Polymer Carbon- Nanotubes by using of square representative volume elements

This paper presents a computational modeling approach for predicting the mechanical behavior of polymer carbon nanotubes (CNT). The CNTs interaction with matrix material was modeled using continuum mechanics theory and finite element approach. The effective mechanical properties of CNT based composites are then evaluated using a 3-D nanoscale model and a square representative volume element based on continuum mechanics and by using the FEM. Some numerical examples have carried out to investigate the stress distribution and to demonstrate the load carrying capacities of the CNT. Having known the stress and strain distribution, the material properties of the CNT can be easily calculated from standard theory of elasticity. In order to show the validity of the calculated results, they were compared with those obtained from the simple rule of mixture and with the earlier results obtained from using the cylindrical KVEs.

Modeling Considerations and Material Properties Evaluation in Analysis of Polymer Carbon- Nanotubes by using of square representative volume elements Keywords:

carbon nanotube , nanocomposite , finite element method , material properties