A comprehensive study of carbon nanoparticle shape and orientation effects on composite elastic properties using FEA

Abstract

Abstract In this study, three critical parameters that influence the effective composite properties of Carbon nanoparticles were tested and modeled using finite elements through Digimat Finite Element Analysis (FEA) software, employing representative volume elements (RVE). The primary parameters under consideration are the fiber shape, fiber orientation, and fiber volume fraction. Four of the many different shapes of Carbon nanoparticles, namely Tubes, Disk, Sphere, and Cylinder, were investigated, coupled with four distinct orientations for tubes: horizontal, aligned at 45°, random, and vertical each varying in the carbon fiber volume fraction. The material of choice was pure epoxy resin because of the nature of the bonding between its two phases and its wide range of usage. Forces were applied along the X-axis, coupled with shear in the XY plane. This study revealed that the orientation of CNTs primarily influences the Elastic Young’s modulus, whereas the size of the CNTs has the main effect on the shear modulus, followed by orientation. The horizontal CNTs demonstrated superior Young’s modulus, but the random orientation had a more pronounced impact on the shear modulus variation. Regarding the analysis of the nanoparticles shapes, the disk shape with fixed orientation revealed the highest elastic modulus, after which the cylinder shape and the sphere recorded the minimum elastic modulus among the three studied shapes.