Mechanical properties and thermal conductivity of pristine and functionalized carbon nanotube reinforced metallic glass composites:A molecular dynamics approach

This work uses the molecular dynamics approach to study the effects of functionalization of carbon nanotubes(CNTs)on the mechanical properties of Cu64Zr36 metallic glass(MG).Three types of functional groups,carboxylic,vinyl and ester were used.The effect of CNT volume fraction(Vf)and the number of functional groups attached to CNT,on the mechanical properties and thermal conductivity of CNT-MG composites was analysed using Biovia Materials Studio.At lower values of Vf(from 0 to 5%),the percentage increase in Young’s modulus was approximately 66%.As the value of Vf was increased further(from 5 to 12%),the rate of increase in Young’s modulus was reduced to 16%.The thermal conductivity was found to increase from 1.52 W/mK at Vf?0%to 5.88 W/mK at Vf?12%,thus giving an increase of approximately 286%.Functionalization of SWCNT reduced the thermal conductivity of the SWCNT-MG composites.

Thermal conductivity of multi-walled carbon nanotubes:Molecular dynamics simulations

Heat conduction in single-walled carbon nanotubes （SWCNTs） has been investigated by using various methods, while less work has been focused on multi-walled carbon nanotubes （MWCNTs）. The thermal conductivities of the double-walled carbon nanotubes （DWCNTs） with two different temperature control methods are studied by using molecular dynamics （MD） simulations. One case is that the heat baths （HBs） are imposed only on the outer wall, while the other is that the HBs are imposed on both the two walls. The results show that the ratio of the thermal conductivity of DWCNTs in the first case to that in the second case is inversely proportional to the ratio of the cross-sectional area of the DWCNT to that of its outer wall. In order to interpret the results and explore the heat conduction mechanisms, the inter-wall thermal transport of DWCNTs is simulated. Analyses of the temperature profiles of a DWCNT and its two walls in the two cases and the inter- wall thermal resistance show that in the first case heat is almost transported only along the outer wall, while in the second case a DWCNT behaves like parallel heat transport channels in which heat is transported along each wall independently. This gives a good explanation of our results and presents the heat conduction mechanisms of MWCNTs.

Study of lattice thermal conductivity of alpha-zirconium by molecular dynamics simulation

The non-equilibrium molecular dynamics method is adapted to calculate the phonon thermal conductivity of alphazirconium. By exchanging velocities of atoms in different regions, the stable heat flux and the temperature gradient are established to calculate the thermal conductivity. The phonon thermal conductivities under different conditions, such as different heat exchange frequencies, different temperatures, different crystallographic orientations, and crossing grain boundary （GB）, are studied in detail with considering the finite size effect. It turns out that the phonon thermal conductivity decreases with the increase of temperature, and displays anisotropies along different crystallographic orientations. The phonon thermal conductivity in [0001] direction （close-packed plane） is largest, while the values in other two directions of [2īī0] and [01ī0] are relatively close. In the region near GB, there is a sharp temperature drop, and the phonon thermal conductivity is about one-tenth of that of the single crystal at 550 K, suggesting that the GB may act as a thermal barrier in the crystal.

Effect of isotope doping on phonon thermal conductivity of silicene nanoribbons: A molecular dynamics study

Silicene, a silicon analogue of graphene, has attracted increasing research attention in recent years because of its unique electrical and thermal conductivities. In this study, phonon thermal conductivity and its isotopic doping effect in silicene nanoribbons（SNRs） are investigated by using molecular dynamics simulations. The calculated thermal conductivities are approximately 32 W/mK and 35 W/mK for armchair-edged SNRs and zigzag-edged SNRs, respectively, which show anisotropic behaviors. Isotope doping induces mass disorder in the lattice, which results in increased phonon scattering, thus reducing the thermal conductivity. The phonon thermal conductivity of isotopic doped SNR is dependent on the concentration and arrangement pattern of dopants. A maximum reduction of about 15% is obtained at 50% randomly isotopic doping with ^（30）Si. In addition, ordered doping（i.e., isotope superlattice） leads to a much larger reduction in thermal conductivity than random doping for the same doping concentration. Particularly, the periodicity of the doping superlattice structure has a significant influence on the thermal conductivity of SNR. Phonon spectrum analysis is also used to qualitatively explain the mechanism of thermal conductivity change induced by isotopic doping. This study highlights the importance of isotopic doping in tuning the thermal properties of silicene, thus guiding defect engineering of the thermal properties of two-dimensional silicon materials.

Molecular dynamics simulations of strain-dependent thermal conductivity of single-layer black phosphorus

Classical molecular dynamics(MD)simulations ae performed to investigate the effects of mechanical strain on the thermal conductivity of single-layer black phosphorus(SLBP)nanoribbons along different directions at room temperature.The results show that the tensile strain afects the thermal conductivity of nanoribbons by changing thephonon density of state(DOS)and mean free path(M FP).The thermal conductivity shows a sharp enhancement with the tensile strain applied along the armchai diection,while it increases slowly with the strain applied along the zigzag diection.This phenomenon cm be mainly explained by effects of the phonon DOS and MFP.The increasing strain along the armchai direction weakens DOS and strengthens MFP clearly.However,when it comes to the increasing strain along the zigzag deection'DOS enliances significantly while MFP decreases slightly.The findings explore the relationship between the tensile strain and the thermal conductivity reasonably and can provide a reliable method to estimate the MFP of black phosphorus.

Molecular dynamics simulation of decomposition and thermal conductivity of methane hydrate in porous media

The hydrate has characteristics of low thermal conductivity and temperature sensitivity. To further analysis the mechanism of thermal conductivity and provide method for the exploitation, transportation and utilization of hydrate, the effect of decomposition and thermal conductivity of methane hydrate in porous media has been studied by using the molecular dynamics simulation. In this study, the simulation is carried out under the condition of temperature 253.15 K-273.15 K and pressure 1 MPa. The results show that the thermal conductivity of methane hydrate increases with the increase of temperature and has a faster growth near freezing. With the addition of porous media, the thermal conductivity of the methane hydrate improves significantly. The methane hydrate-porous media system also has the characteristics of vitreous body.With the decrease of the pore size of the porous media, thermal conductivity of the system increases gradually at the same temperature. It can be ascertained that the porous media of different pore sizes have strengthened the role of the thermal conductivity of hydrates.

Molecular dynamics study on the dependence of thermal conductivity on size and strain in GaN nanofilms

The thermal conductivity of GaN nanofilm is simulated by using the molecular dynamics(MD)method to explore the influence of the nanofilm thickness and the pre-strain field under different temperatures.It is demonstrated that the thermal conductivity of GaN nanofilm increases with the increase of nanofilm thickness,while decreases with the increase of temperature.Meanwhile,the thermal conductivity of strained GaN nanofilms is weakened with increasing the tensile strain.The film thickness and environment temperature can affect the strain effect on the thermal conductivity of GaN nanofilms.In addition,the analysis of phonon properties of GaN nanofilm shows that the phonon dispersion and density of states of GaN nanofilms can be significantly modified by the film thickness and strain.The results in this work can provide the theoretical supports for regulating the thermal properties of GaN nanofilm through tailoring the geometric size and strain engineering.

Molecular Dynamics Simulations for Anisotropic Thermal Conductivity of Borophene

The present work carries out molecular dynamics simulations to compute the thermal conductivity of the borophene nanoribbon and the borophene nanotube using the Müller-Plathe approach.We investigate the thermal conductivity of the armchair and zigzag borophenes,and show the strong anisotropic thermal conductivity property of borophene.We compare results of the borophene nanoribbon and the borophene nanotube,and find the thermal conductivity of the borophene is orientation dependent.The thermal conductivity of the borophene does not vary as changing the width of the borophene nanoribbon and the perimeter of the borophene nanotube.In addition,the thermal conductivity of the borophene is not sensitive to the applied strains and the background temperatures.

Molecular dynamics simulation of thermal conductivity of silicone rubber

Silicone rubber is widely used as a kind of thermal interface material(TIM)in electronic devices.However few studies have been carried out on the thermal conductivity mechanism of silicone rubber.This paper investigates the thermal conductivity mechanism by non-equilibrium molecular dynamics(NEMD)in three aspects:chain length,morphology,and temperature.It is found that the effect of chain length on thermal conductivity varies with morphologies.In crystalline state where the chains are aligned,the thermal conductivity increases apparently with the length of the silicone-oxygen chain,the thermal conductivity of 79 nm-long crystalline silicone rubber could reach 1.49 W/(m·K).The thermal conductivity of amorphous silicone rubber is less affected by the chain length.The temperature dependence of thermal conductivity of silicone rubbers with different morphologies is trivial.The phonon density of states(DOS)is calculated and analyzed.The results indicate that crystalline silicone rubber with aligned orientation has more low frequency phonons,longer phonon MFP,and shorter conducting path,which contribute to a larger thermal conductivity.

Effects of doping, Stone Wales and vacancy defects on thermal conductivity of single-wall carbon nanotubes

The thermal conductivity of carbon nanotubes with certain defects （doping, Stone-Wales, and vacancy） is investigated by using the non-equilibrium molecular dynamics method. The defective carbon nanotubes （CNTs） are compared with perfect tubes. The influences of type and concentration of the defect, length, diameter, and chirality of the tube, and the ambient temperature are taken into consideration. It is demonstrated that defects result in a dramatic reduction of thermal conductivity. Doping and Stone-Wales （SW） defects have greater effect on armchair tubes, while vacancy affects the zigzag ones more. Thermal conductivity of the nanotubes increases, reaches a peak, and then decreases with increasing temperature. The temperature at which the thermal conductivity peak occurs is dependent on the defect type. Different from SW or vacancy tubes, doped tubes are similar to the perfect ones with a sharp peak at the same temperature. Thermal conductivity goes up when the tube length grows or diameter declines. It seems that the length of thermal conductivity convergence for SW tubes is much shorter than perfect or vacancy ones. The SW or vacancy tubes are less sensitive to the diameter change, compared with perfect ones.

Influence of chirality on the thermal conductivity of single-walled carbon nanotubes

The influence of chirality on the thermal conductivity of single-walled carbon nanotubes （SWNTs） is discussed in this paper, using a non-equilibrium molecular dynamics （NEMD） method. The tube lengths of the SWNTs studied here are 20, 50, and 100 nm, respectively, and at each length the relationship between chiral angle and thermal conductivity of a SWNT is revealed. We find that if the tube length is relatively short, the influence of chirality on the thermal conductivity of a SWNT is more obvious and that a SWNT with a larger chiral angle has a greater thermal conductivity. Moreover, the thermal conductivity of a zigzag SWNT is smaller than that of an armchair one. As the tube length becomes longer, the thermal conductivity increases while the influence of chirality on the thermal conductivity decreases.

A non-equilibrium molecular dynamics study of the thermal conductivity of uranium dioxide

The thermal conductivity of uranium dioxide in the temperature range of 300–2400 K was estimated by non-equilibrium molecular dynamics calculation using Fourier law.The Kawamura function was adopted as the interatomic potential function.The calculated thermal conductivities are found to be strongly dependent on the temperature of the simulation cube.The thermal conductivity simulation results are compared with the experiment results and agreed well with the experimental results when the temperature is above 600 K.The thermal conductivities scale effects are found to be existed in uranium dioxide nanometer thin film.The approximate mean free paths of phonons in different temperatures can be examined.

Thermal instability and dynamic response analysis of a tensioned carbon nanotube under moving uniformly distributed external pressure

Single-walled carbon nanotubes(SWCNTs)are receiving immense research attention due to their tremendous thermal,electrical,structural and mechanical properties.In this paper,an exact solution of the dynamic response of SWCNT with a moving uniformly distributed load is presented.The SWCNT is modelled via the theories of Bernoulli-Euler-thermal elasticity mechanics and solved using Integral transforms.The developed closed-form solution in the present work is compared with existing results and excellent agreements are established.The parametric studies show that as the magnitude of the pressure distribution at the surface increases,the deflection associated with the single walled nanotube increases at any mode whilst a corresponding increase in temperature and foundation parameter have an attenuating effect on deflection.Moreover,an increase in the Winkler parameter,as well as a decrease in the SWCNT mass increases its frequency of vibration.Furthermore,an increase in the speed of the external agent decreases the total external pressure as a result of the removal of dead loads.The present work is envisaged to improve the application of SWCNT as nanodevices for structural,electrical and mechanical systems.

On the Thermal Conductivity of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotube Ropes

Recently measured thermal conductivity in single-walled carbon nanotube ropes in the temperature range 8 - 350 K has been explained using an anisotropic dynamical model which not only takes into account the quasi two-dimensional nature of the folded graphene sheets that forms the nanotubes, but also the intertube coupling, in addition to the phonon frequency and dimensionality dependent relaxation time of phonon-phonon scattering and interaction.

Thermal conductivity of carbon nanoring linked graphene sheets:A molecular dynamics investigation

Improving the thermal conduction across graphene sheets is of great importance for their applications in thermal management. In this paper, thermal transport across a hybrid structure lbrmed by two graphene nanoribbons and carbon nanorings （CNRs） was investigated by molecular dynamics simulations. The effects of linker diameter, number, and height on thermal conductivity of the CNRs-graphene hybrid structures were studied respectively, and the CNRs were found effective in transmitting the phonon modes of GNRs. The hybrid structure with 2 linkers showed the highest thermal conductivity of 68.8 W·m^-1·K^-1. Our work presents important insight into fundamental principles governing the thermal conduction across CNR junctions and provides useful guideline for designing CNR-graphene structure with superior thermal conductivity.

Directional mechanical and thermal properties of single-layer black phosphorus by classical molecular dynamics

Black phosphorus （BP） has received attention due to its own higher carrier mobility and layer dependent electronic properties, such as direct band gap. Interestingly, the single layer black phosphorus （SLBP） has had large popularity in applications related to thermoelectric, optoelectronic, and electronic devices. Here, we investigate the phonon spectrum, thermal conductivities, and stress strain effects. Robust anisotropy was mainly observed in the thermal conductivities together with the alongside zigzag （ZZ） direction value, compared to the armchair （AC） directions. We also investigated the attitude of stress that was anisotropic in both directions, and the stress effects were two times greater across the ZZ path than those in the AC direction at a low temperature. We obtained a ~oung＇s modulus of 63.77 and 20.74 GPa in the AC and ZZ directions, respectively, for a strain range of 0.01. These results had good agreement with first principle calculations. Our study here is useful and significant for the thermal tuning of phosphorus-based nanoelectronics and thermalelectric applications of phosphorus.

Controlled thermally-driven mass transport in carbon nanotubes using carbon hoops

Controlling mass transportation using intrinsic mechanisms is a challenging topic in nanotechnology.Herein,we employ molecular dynamics simulations to investigate the mass transport inside carbon nanotubes(CNT)with temperature gradients,specifically the effects of adding a static carbon hoop to the outside of a CNT on the transport of a nanomotor inside the CNT.We reveal that the underlying mechanism is the uneven potential energy created by the hoops,i.e.,the hoop outside the CNT forms potential energy barriers or wells that affect mass transport inside the CNT.This fundamental control of directional mass transportation may lead to promising routes for nanoscale actuation and energy conversion.

Simultaneously improving thermal conductivity,mechanical properties and metal fluidity through Cu alloying in Mg-Zn-based alloys

Mg-Zn-based alloys have been widely used in computer,communication,and consumer(3C)products due to excellent thermal conductivity.However,it is still a challenge to balance their mechanical performance and thermal conductivity.Here,we investigate microstructure,mechanical performance,thermal conductivity and metal fluidity of Mg-5Zn(wt.%)alloy after Cu alloying by experimental and simulation methods.First,Mg-5Zn alloy consist ofα-Mg matrix and interdendritic MgZn phases.As the Cu content increases,however,MgZn phases disappear but intragranular Mg_(2)Cu and interdendritic MgZnCu phases appear in Mg-5Zn-Cu alloys.Besides,the grain size ofα-Mg phase is refined and the volume fraction of MgZnCu phase increases as the Cu content increases.Second,Cu addition is found to improve thermal conductivity of Mg-5Zn alloy remarkably.Especially,Mg-5Zn-4Cu alloy exhibits the best thermal conductivity of 124 W/(m·K),which is mainly due to the significant reduction in both solid solubility of Zn in theα-Mg matrix and lattice distortion ofα-Mg matrix.Moreover,a stable crystal structure of MgZnCu phase also contributes to an increased thermal conductivity based on first principles and molecular dynamics simulations.Third,Cu addition simultaneously enhances strength and ductility of Mg-5Zn alloy.Tensile yield strength and elongation of Mg-5Zn-6Cu alloy reach 117 MPa and 18.0%,respectively,which is a combined result of refinement,solution,second phase,and dislocation strengthening.Finally,combined with a phase field simulation,we found that Cu addition enhances metal fluidity of Mg-5Zn alloy.On the one hand,Cu alloying not only delays dendrite growth but also prolongs solidification time.On the other hand,MgZnCu phase stabilizes the dendrite growth of theα-Mg phases by reducing energy consumption during solidification of liquid metal.This work demonstrates that Cu alloying is an ideal strategy for synergistically improving the thermal conductivity,mechanical performance and metal fluidity of Mg-based alloys.

Thermal transport properties of defective graphene:A molecular dynamics investigation

In this work the thermal transport properties of graphene nanoribbons with randomly distributed vacancy defects are investigated by the reverse non-equilibrium molecular dynamics method. We find that the thermal conductivity of the graphene nanoribbons decreases as the defect coverage increases and is saturated in a high defect ratio range. Further analysis reveals a strong mismatch in the phonon spectrum between the unsaturated carbon atoms in 2-fold coordination around the defects and the saturated carbon atoms in 3-fold coordination, which induces high interfacial thermal resistance in defective graphene and suppresses the thermal conductivity. The defects induce a complicated bonding transform from sp2 to hybrid sp--sp2 network and trigger vibration mode density redistribution, by which the phonon spectrum conversion and strong phonon scattering at defect sites are explained. These results shed new light on the understanding of the thermal transport behavior of graphene-based nanomaterials with new structural configurations and pave the way for future designs of thermal management phononic devices.