Mechanical response of polymer/BN composites investigated by molecular dynamics method

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

9-23-2022

Department

Department of Physics; Department of Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics

Abstract

Boron nitride (BN) nanomaterials are being proposed as reinforcement materials in the next-generation structural composite materials for aerospace applications. Considering that the polymer/reinforcement interface characteristics can significantly affect the bulk-level properties, we focus on the representative cases of cyanate esters, epoxy, and bismaleimide (BMI) resins forming interfaces with a bilayer BN. While the fluorinated cyanate ester interface demonstrates lower interaction energy than non-fluorinated cyanate ester due to steric hindrance provided by fluorine groups, BMI shows higher interaction energy than epoxy because of the planarity of BMI. Calculations simulating pull-apart transverse tension experiments using molecular dynamics find that the non-fluorinated ester interface exhibits higher peak strength and stiffness than the fluorinated interface. On the other hand, the epoxy/BN interface is predicted to have significantly lower toughness than the BMI/BN interface. The results based on interaction energy and pull-apart transverse tension show that the BMI with BN can be considered superior to epoxy and ester polymers with BN. Graphical abstract: [Figure not available: see fulltext.]

Publisher's Statement

© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to The Materials Research Society 2022. Publisher’s version of record: https://doi.org/10.1557/s43578-022-00725-9

Publication Title

Journal of Materials Research

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