Eur. Phys. J. Plus (2020) 135: 121
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-020-00227-9

Regular Article

Effect of interphase on elastic and shear moduli of metal matrix nanocomposites

Mechanical Engineering Department, Institute of Technology, Nirma University, S G Highway, Ahmadabad, Gujarat, 382481, India

^* e-mail: mitesh.panchal@nirmauni.ac.in

Received: 28 May 2019
Accepted: 5 December 2019
Published online: 23 January 2020

Abstract

In the present work, the effect of interphase between nanofiller materials and base metal materials has been analyzed. The analysis has been performed to analyze the possible enhancement of mechanical properties in the presence of interphase between nanofiller material and base metal material of resultant nanocomposites. The carbon nanotube (CNT) and single-layer graphene sheet (SLGS) have been used as nanofiller materials. The 3-dimensional continuum solid modeling-based simulation approach has been considered for the analysis, which can easily model the bonding between base materials and interphase as well as bonding between interphase and nanofiller material. Also, the CNT/SLGS-based metal matrix composites are analyzed to analyze the effect of interphase due to variation in size of the nanofiller materials (variation in outer radius of CNTs and variation in width of the SLGSs) on the elastic and shear moduli of the metal matrix nanocomposites. The presented 3-dimensional continuum solid modeling-based simulation approach has been validated by comparing obtained results with the analytical results based on the continuum solid mechanics-based formulations (rule of mixture). The obtained results depict that the consideration of interphase between nanofiller material and base metal material enhances the elastic and shear moduli of resultant metal matrix nanocomposite. And, the variation in size of nanofiller material affects the overall mechanical properties of resultant metal matrix nanocomposites. Also, the obtained results depict that the effect of variation in outer radii of CNTs is found more significant compared to the variation in width of SLGSs. As the presented 3-dimensional continuum solid modeling-based simulation approach reduces the complexity of the analytical formulations, it is found to be an efficient tool for mechanical characterization of metal matrix nanocomposites in the presence of interphase.