The aim of the research article is to develop a representative volume element using finite elements to study the buckling stability of graphene/polymer nanocomposites. Research work exploring the full potential of graphene as filler for nanocomposites is limited in part due to the complex processes associated with the mixing of graphene in polymer. To overcome some of these issues, a multiscale...

Evaluation of effective or macroscopic coefficients of thermal conductivity under coupled heat and moisture transfer is presented. The paper first gives a detailed summary on the solution of a simple steady state heat conduction problem with an emphasis on various types of boundary conditions applied to the representative volume element – a periodic unit cell. Since the results essentially sugg...

The importance of Lithium-ion batteries continues to grow with the introduction of more electronic devices, electric cars, and energy storage. Yet the optimization approach taken by the manufacturers and system designers is one of test and build, an approach that nearly every other industry has long abandoned. A computational model is required to reduce the expensive build-test cycle and allow ...

Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and micromechanical modeling are used to predict the bulk-level Young’s modulus of polycarbonate and polyimide polymer systems as a function of representative volume element (RVE) size and force field type. The bulk-level moduli are determined using the predicted moduli of individual finite-sized RVEs (microstates) using a simple averaging scheme and an energ...

To provide a seamless integration of manufacturing processing simulation and fiber microstructure modeling, two new stochastic 3D microstructure reconstruction methods are proposed for two types of random fiber composites: random short fiber composites, and Sheet Molding Compounds (SMC) chopped fiber composites. A Random Sequential Adsorption (RSA) algorithm is first developed to embed statisti...

This paper presents a comparative study on locally mass-conservative numerical methods for Darcy’s flows. The classical mixed finite element method (MFEM) is compared with the newly developed discontinuous finite volume method (DFVM) with and without weak over-penalization (WOP). These numerical methods are tested on three representative problems in porous media flows. In particular, locality, ...

The presence of chemical bonding between functionalized carbon nanotubes and matrix in carbon nanotube reinforced composites is modeled by elastic beam elements representing covalent bonding characteristics. Neglecting other reinforcing mechanisms in the composite such as relatively weak interatomic Van der Waals forces, this model shows close results to the Rule of Mixtures model’s prediction ...

In this paper, finite element method is used to obtain thermal conductivity coefficients of single-walled carbon nanotube reinforced polypropylene. For this purpose, the two-dimensional representative volume elements are modeled. The effect of different parameters such as nanotube dispersion pattern, nanotube volume percentage in polymer matrix, interphase thickness between nanotube and surroun...