INVESTIGATION OF MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF CNT REINFORCED EPOXY NANOCOMPOSITE: A MOLECULAR DYNAMIC SIMULATIONS

In the present research, MD simulations have been employed to study the mechanical properties of epoxy DGEBA with and without reinforcement of CNT. A triangular cross link rigid structure has been created using Material Studio (MS) software. An amorphous cell has been created which is a reprensentative composite. All the simulations have been carried out using Forcite module of Material Studio. Mechanical properties with and without reinforcement of CNT have been obtained. It has been found that at room temperature, Young's modulus of DGEBA-DETDA composite is 2.429 GPa while after reinforcement of CNT, Young's modulus increased to 13.27 GPa. The MD simulation results indicate that the Young's modulus of the reinforced composites and the epoxy matrix decrease with increase in strain rate (from 0.0 to 0.1). MD simulation results show that at any given strain rate, CNT reinforced epoxy composite is 5 times stiffer than the pure epoxy matrix.