Related papers: Rethinking Interphase Representations for Modeling…
Polymers are increasingly used in the transport sector due to their many advantages; lightness, corrosion resistance, ease to process... However, most of them have limited mechanical properties. To improve these latter, one of the solutions…
Quantifying the nanomechanical properties of soft-matter using multi-frequency atomic force microscopy (AFM) is crucial for studying the performance of polymers, ultra-thin coatings, and biological systems. Such characterization processes…
Polymeric materials are widely used in industries ranging from automotive to biomedical. Their mechanical properties play a crucial role in their application and function and arise from the nanoscale structures and interactions of their…
We demonstrate that the method of characterizing viscoelastic materials with Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) by fitting analytical models to force-distance (FD) curves often yields conflicting and physically unrealistic results. Because this…
This paper presents a study of the polymer-filler interfacial effects on filler dispersion and mechanical reinforcement in Polystyrene (PS) / silica nanocomposites by direct comparison of two model systems: un-grafted and PS-grafted silica…
The mechanical property enhancement of polymer reinforced with nano-thin clay platelets (of high aspect ratio) is associated with a high polymer-filler interfacial area per unit volume. The ideal case of fully separated (exfoliated)…
This paper is an attempt to predict the thickness and modulus at the nanometric interphase region with the knowledge on the macroscopic Young's modulus in the polymer-clay nanocomposites. First, a systematic design of 20160 linear elastic…
For polymer nanocomposites, disordered microstructural nature makes processing control and tailoring properties to desired values a challenge. Understanding process-structure-property relation can provide guidelines for process and…
Atomic force microscopy (AFM) is one of the most promising methods for investigating the structure of materials at the micro and nanoscale levels, as well as their local physical-mechanical properties. The experimental data obtained with…
Nanocomposite materials made of block copolymer and nanoparticles display properties which can be different from the purely polymeric matrix. The resulting material is a crossover of the original properties of the block copolymer and the…
Field-theoretical method is efficient in predicting the assembling structures of polymeric systems. However, for the polymer/nanoparticle mixture, the continuous density description is not suitable to capture the realistic assembly of…
Flexible piezoelectric devices made of polymeric materials are widely used for micro- and nano-electro-mechanical systems. In particular, numerous recent applications concern energy harvesting. Due to the importance of computational…
Atomic force microscopy (AFM) is a key tool for characterising nanoscale structures, with functionalised tips now offering detailed images of the atomic structure. In parallel, AFM simulations using the particle probe model provide a…
Various aspects of the methods of physical and physicochemical modification of components of filled thermoplastic composite materials are analyzed, aimed at improving the surface properties of the fillers and the technological properties of…
Since the inception of the atomic force microscope AFM, dynamic methods have been very fruitful by establishing methods to quantify dissipative and conservative forces in the nanoscale and by providing a means to apply gentle forces to the…
Interface constitutes a significant volume fraction in nanocomposites, and it requires the ability to tune and tailor interfaces to tap the full potential of nanocomposites. However, the development and optimization of nanocomposites is…
The local structure of a protein strongly impacts its function and interactions with other molecules. Therefore, a concise, informative representation of a local protein environment is essential for modeling and designing proteins and…
The paper analyzes theoretically the influence of fullerenes on the characteristics of $\mathrm{Al/C}_{60}$ composites. The molecular dynamics method is used to study the dependences of density and stiffness constants on the concentration…
Over the past two decades polymer nanocomposites have received tremendous interest from industry and academia due to their advanced properties comparative to polymer blends. Many computational studies have revealed that the macroscopic…
As inelastic structures are ubiquitous in many engineering fields, a central task in computational mechanics is to develop accurate, robust and efficient tools for their analysis. Motivated by the poor performances exhibited by standard…