Micromechanical analysis of effective mechanical properties of graphene/ZrO2-hybrid poly (methyl methacrylate) nanocomposites

Abstract

In this study, the tensile properties of two-phase and three-phase graphene/ZrO2-hybrid poly (methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) nanocomposites are investigated by developing finite element model using ANSYS. Primarily, the effective elastic properties of two- and three-phase graphene/ZrO2-hybrid PMMA nanocomposites (GRPCs) are estimated by developing mechanics of material (MOM) model. Results indicated that the effective elastic properties of GRPCs increase with an increase in the volume fraction of graphene. Also, the stiffness of GRPCs is increased by 78.12% with increasing in the volume fraction of graphene from 0.1 to 0.5 Vf. The incorporation of an additional ZrO2 interphase significantly improved the mechanical performance of resulting GRPCs. © The Author(s) 2021.