Related papers: Crazing of Nanocomposites with Polymer-Tethered Na…
We report on an extensive study of craze formation in glassy polymers. Molecular dynamics simulations of a coarse-grained bead-spring model were employed to investigate the molecular level processes during craze nucleation, widening, and…
It has recently been proposed that the miscibility of nanoparticles with a polymer matrix can be controlled by grafting polymer chains to the nanoparticle surface. As a first step to study this situation, we have used molecular dynamics…
This study investigated, experimentally and numerically, the fracturing behavior of thermoset polymer structures featuring cracks and sharp u-notches. It is shown that, even for cases in which the sharpness of the notch would suggest…
Mixtures of nanoparticles and polymer-like objects are encountered in many nanotechnological applications and biological systems. We study the behavior of grafted polymer layers decorated by nanoparticles that are attracted to the polymers…
Both the dispersion state of nanoparticles (NPs) within polymer nanocomposites (PNCs) and the dynamical state of the polymer altered by the presence of the NP/polymer interfaces have a strong impact on the macroscopic properties of PNCs. In…
We study with molecular dynamics simulations of a generic bead-spring model the cyclic crazing behaviour of glassy polymers. The aim is to elucidate the mechanical response of sole fibrillated craze matter as well as its interaction with…
Polymer-grafted nanoparticles (PGNPs) can provide property profiles than cannot be obtained individually by polymers or nanoparticles (NPs). Here, we have studied the mixing--demixing transition of symmetric copolymer melts of…
Molecular dynamics simulations are used to study a unique expanded jammed state. Tension transforms many glassy polymers from a dense glass to a network of fibrils and voids called a craze. Entanglements between polymers and interchain…
This work proposes an investigation of the fracturing behavior of polymer nanocomposites. Towards this end, the study leverages the analysis of a large bulk of fracture tests from the literature with the goal of critically investigating the…
This work proposes an investigation on the scaling of the structural strength of polymer/graphene nanocomposites. To this end, fracture tests on geometrically scaled Single Edge Notch Bending (SENB) specimens with varying contents of…
Gold nanorods grafted with short chain polymers are assembled into controlled open structures using polymer-induced depletion interactions and structurally characterized using small angle x-ray scattering. When the nanorod diameter is…
We combine molecular dynamics simulations of deformations at the submicron scale with a continuum fracture mechanics calculation for the onset of crack propagation to predict the macroscopic fracture toughness of amorphous glassy polymers.…
Large-scale molecular simulations are performed to investigate tensile failure of polymer interfaces as a function of welding time $t$. Changes in the tensile stress, mode of failure and interfacial fracture energy $G_I$ are correlated to…
The adhesion between a polymer melt and substrate is studied in the presence of chemically attached chains on the substrate surface. Extensive molecular dynamics simulations have been carried out to study the effect of temperature, tethered…
Polymer-grafted nanoparticles are versatile building blocks that self-assemble into a rich diversity of mesostructures. Coarse-grained molecular simulations have commonly accompanied experiments by resolving structure formation pathways and…
The physical and chemical properties of metal nanoparticles differ significantly from those of free metal atoms as well as from the properties of bulk metals, and therefore, they may be viewed as a transition regime between the two physical…
While recent efforts have shown how local structure plays an essential role in the dynamic heterogeneity of homogeneous glass-forming materials, systems containing interfaces such as thin films or composite materials remain poorly…
Polymer composite materials are widely used for their exceptional mechanical properties, notably their ability to resist large deformations. Here we examine the failure stress and strain of rubbers reinforced by varying amounts of…
The paper concerns the nanopowder high-speed, $10^4$ - $10^9$ s${}^{-1}$, compaction processes modeling by a two-dimensional granular dynamics method. Nanoparticles interaction, in addition to known contact laws, included dispersive…
This work investigated how the structure size affects the quasi-static and fatigue behaviors of graphene polymer nanocomposites, a topic that has been often overlooked. The results showed that both quasi-static and fatigue failure of these…