Influence of Volume Fraction on the Mechanical Properties of Nanocomposites using RVE

The purpose of present work is to investigate the nanoindentation process of exfoliated Nylon 66 /clay nanocomposite that has nonlinear elastic behavior using numerical simulation. First a symmetric two dimensional finite element model is used to simulate the fully exfoliated Polymer/Clay nanocomposite behavior in tensile test and evaluate its’ before stress stress-strain curve. Then by using this stress-strain curve, the nanoindentation process of nanocomposite is simulated as an isotropic material. Finally, the effect of volume fraction of clay and indenter angle on load-displacement curve is investigated. The simulation results for load-displacement curve show that there is a good agreement between the numerical and experimental results. Furthermore, it is observed that the simulation results of nanoindentation do not depend on the friction coefficient of indenter and specimen significantly.