ABSTRACT
Single layer graphene sheets and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have resulted in the development of new materials for a variety of applications. Though there are a large number of experimental and numerical studies related to these nanofillers, still there is a lack of understanding of the effect of geometrical characteristics of these nanofillers on their mechanical properties. In this study, molecular dynamics (MD) simulation has been used to study the effect of CNT and graphene reinforcements on the mechanical properties of amorphous metallic glass (MG). Materials Studio 7.0 has been used as a tool for finding the tensile modulus, yield strength and yield strain of nanocomposites. Both short and long CNT and graphene reinforced MG composites have been studied. The effect of nanofiller volume fraction (Vf ) on the mechanical properties has also been studied. Results showed that with increase in Vf the Young’s modulus of long graphene/MG composites increased at a faster rate than that for long CNT/MG composites. For the same Vf , the Young’s modulus of long graphene/MG composite was higher than long CNT/MG composite, thus showing that graphene is a better reinforcement than CNT for MG based composites. MG with short nano-reinforcements showed very small improvement in mechanical properties. To find thermal conductivity, MD simulations were performed with SWCNT (or graphene) volume fraction varying from Vf = 0–0.16 and aspect ratio (in case of CNTs) was kept fixed at l/d = 10. The results obtained from MD have been compared with analytical models such as Maxwell-Garnett, Hamilton-Crosser and Deng models for validation of results.
