Date of Award

Fall 12-2013

Access Type

Thesis - Open Access

Degree Name

Master of Science in Aerospace Engineering

Department

Aerospace Engineering

Committee Chair

Virginie Rollin

First Committee Member

Daewon Kim

Second Committee Member

John Mathis

Abstract

The aerospace industry is interested in increasing the strength while reducing the weight of carbon fiber composite materials. Adding single walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT) to a polymer matrix can achieve that goal by improving delamination properties of the composite. Due to the complexity of polymer molecules and the curing process, few 3-D Molecular Dynamics simulations of a polymer-SWCNT composite have been run. Our model runs on the Large-scale Atomic/Molecular Massively Parallel Simulator (LAMMPS), with a COMPASS (Condensed phase Optimized Molecular Potential for Atomistic Simulations Studies) potential to represent the interactions between the atoms of the polymer and the SWCNT. This potential includes non-bonded interactions (9-6 Lennard-Jones), bond interaction (class2), angles (class2) and dihedrals (class2) to create a molecular dynamics model for single-walled carbon nanotubes and EPON 862/DETDA (Diethyltoluenediamine) polymer matrix. Two simulations were performed in order to test the implementation of the potential. The first one is a tensile test on a SWCNT, leading to a Young's modulus of 1.4 TPa at 300K. The second one is a pull-out test of a SWCNT from an originally uncured EPON 862/DETDA matrix.

Download

Share

COinS