Structure dependent elastic properties of supergraphene

Complete replacement of aromatic carbon bonds in graphene by carbyne chains gives rise to supergraphene whose mechanical properties are expected to depend on its structure. However, this dependence is to date unclear. In this paper, explicit expressions for the in-plane stiffness and Poisson's ratio of supergraphene are obtained using a molecular mechanics model. The theoretical results show that the in-plane stiffness of supergraphene is drastically(at least one order) smaller than that of graphene, whereas its Poisson's ratio is higher than 0.5. As the index number increases(i.e., the length of carbyne chains increases and the bond density decreases), the in-plane stiffness of supergraphene decreases while the Poisson's ratio increases. By analyzing the relation among the layer modulus, in-plane stiffness and Poisson's ratio, it is revealed that the mechanism of the faster decrease in the in-plane stiffness than the bond density is due to the increase of Poisson's ratio. These findings are useful for future applications of supergraphene in nanomechanical systems.

Multi-axial strain-stiffening elastic potentials with energy bounds:explicit approach based on uniaxial data

According to the well-known models for rubberlike elasticity with strainstiffening effects, the unbounded strain energy is generated with the unlimitedly growing stress when the stretch approaches certain limits. Toward a solution to this issue, an explicit approach is proposed to derive the multi-axial elastic potentials directly from the uniaxial potentials. Then, a new multi-axial potential is presented to characterize the strain-stiffening effect by prescribing suitable forms of uniaxial potentials so that the strain energy is always bounded as the stress grows to infinity. Numerical examples show good agreement with a number of test data.

A new,direct approach toward modeling thermo-coupled fatigue failure behavior of metals and alloys

The objective of this study is two-fold. Firstly, new finite strain elastoplasticity models are proposed from a fresh standpoint to achieve a comprehensive representation of thermomechanical behavior of metals and alloys over the whole deformation range up to failure. As contrasted with the usual elastoplasticity models, such new models of much simpler structure are totally free, in the sense that both the yield condition and the loading–unloading conditions need not be introduced as extrinsic coercive conditions but are automatically incorporated as inherent constitutive features into the models. Furthermore, the new models are shown to be thermodynamically consistent, in a further sense that both the specific entropy function and the Helmholtz free energy function may be presented in explicit forms, such that the thermodynamic restriction stipulated by Clausius–Duhem inequality for the intrinsic dissipation may be identically satisfied. Secondly, it is then demonstrated that the thermo-coupled fatigue failure behavior under combined cyclic changes of stress and temperature may be derived as direct consequences from the new models. This novel result implies that the new model can directly characterize the thermo-coupled fatigue failure behavior of metals and alloys, without involving any usual damage-like variables as well as any ad hoc additional criteria for failure. In particular, numerical examples show that, under cyclic changes of temperature, the fatigue characteristic curve of fatigue life versus temperature amplitude may be obtained for the first time from model prediction both in the absence and in the presence of stress. Results are in agreement with the salient features of metal fatigue failure.

OBTAINING MULTI-AXIAL ELASTIC POTENTIALS FOR RUBBER-LIKE MATERIALS VIA AN EXPLICIT,EXACT APPROACH BASED ON SPLINE INTERPOLATION

An explicit, exact approach is proposed to obtain multi-axial elastic potentials for isotropic rubber-like materials undergoing large incompressible deformations. By means of two direct, explicit procedures, this approach reduces the problem of determining multi-axial potentials to that of determining one-dimensional elastic potentials. To this end, two one-dimensional potentials for uniaxial case and simple shear case are respectively determined via spline interpolation and, then, the two potentials are extended to generate a multi-axial elastic potential using a novel method based on certain logarithmic invariants. Eventually, each of the multi-axial potentials will exactly match the finite strain data from four benchmark tests.