Influence of Volume Fraction on the Mechanical Properties of Nanocomposites using RVE

The purpose of present work is to investigate the nanoindentation process of exfoliated Nylon 66 /clay nanocomposite that has nonlinear elastic behavior using numerical simulation. First a symmetric two dimensional finite element model is used to simulate the fully exfoliated Polymer/Clay nanocomposite behavior in tensile test and evaluate its’ before stress stress-strain curve. Then by using this stress-strain curve, the nanoindentation process of nanocomposite is simulated as an isotropic material. Finally, the effect of volume fraction of clay and indenter angle on load-displacement curve is investigated. The simulation results for load-displacement curve show that there is a good agreement between the numerical and experimental results. Furthermore, it is observed that the simulation results of nanoindentation do not depend on the friction coefficient of indenter and specimen significantly.

Keywords:

polymer/clay nanocomposite , nanoindentation , Finite element , stress-strain curve