We carried out fully atomistic reactive molecular dynamics simulations to study the mechanical behavior of six newly proposed hybrid schwarzite-based structures (interlocked petal-schwarzites). Schwarzites are carbon crystalline nanostructures with negative Gaussian curvature created by mapping a TPMS (Triply Periodic Minimal Surface) with carbon rings containing six to eight atoms. Our simulations have shown that petal-schwarzite structures can withstand uni-axial compressive stress up to the order of GPa and can be compressed past 50 percent strain without structural collapse. Our most resistant hierarchical structure has a calculated compressive strength of 260~GPa and specific energy absorption (SEA) of 45.95 MJ/kg, while possessing a mass density of only 685 kg/m3. These results show that these structures could be excellent lightweight materials for applications that require mechanical energy absorption.
@article{arxiv.2307.02660,
title = {Mechanical Energy Absorption of Architecturally Interlocked Petal-Schwarzites},
author = {Leonardo V. Bastos and Rushikesh S. Ambekar and Chandra S. Tiwary and Douglas S. Galvao and Cristiano F. Woellner},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2307.02660},
year = {2023}
}