Numerical analysis of the elastic-plastic properties of the composites incorporating nanohybrid shish-kebab structures

The nanohybrid shish-kebab (NHSK) structure, in which randomly dispersed and wavy carbon nanotubes (CNTs) serve as shish and crystal lamellas periodically decorated onto the CNTs serve as kebabs, has attracted extensive attentions due to its more excellent enhancement in comparison with pristine CNT for polymer matrix composites. In this paper, a new method, based on a modified random sequential adsorption (RSA) algorithm, is proposed to construct the 3D finite element model of the NHSK reinforced composites. The Young's modulus calculated by this model agrees with the experimental result. Moreover, we present a comparison between the pristine CNT reinforced composite and the NHSK reinforced composite in terms of elastic-plastic behavior. Different load transfer mechanisms are analyzed for the two kinds of composites. Furthermore, we explore the effects of the crystal kebab's material property, diameter and the periodicity of the kebabs on the elastic-plastic properties of the composite. The results show that the effective mechanical properties of the composites have a large improvement with the existence of crystal kebabs in comparison to the pristine CNT reinforced composite, which indicates that the NHSK structure can improve the load transfer efficiency between the CNT and the matrix and act as another enhanced phase in the composite. The proposed model can be used for the virtual design and optimization of CNT/semicrystalline polymer composites since it has proven capable of assessing the effects of different material and geometrical parameters on the elastic-plastic properties of the composites.