Nano-architected metamaterials: Carbon nanotube-based nanotrusses

CY Zhang and A Akbarzadeh and W Kang and JX Wang and A Mirabolghasemi, CARBON, 131, 38-46 (2018).

DOI: 10.1016/j.carbon.2018.01.082

In this paper, we propose a novel face-centered cubic (fcc) lattice-like nanotruss with carbon nanotubes and newly designed 12-terminal junctions as building blocks. Using molecular dynamics simulation, both thermal and mechanical properties of this novel nano-architected metamaterials are systematically predicted and a comparison study is conducted between fcc and simple cubic lattice-like nanotrusses. Our findings demonstrate that the fcc lattice-like nanotrusses have relatively low thermal conductivity kappa = 1.24 similar to 3.31W(m.k) and reasonably high specific modulus M = 49: 79 similar to 114.15MN.m/kg in all three directions (100, 110, 111), for a material density in the range of rho = 0.23 similar to 0.82g/cm(3). Depending on the specific requirements in material design, the widely ranged Young's modulus E and thermal conductivity kappa of nano-architected metamaterials can be tuned by changing the tube length. All the aforementioned advantages can be maintained at a high temperature up to 3000K, which indicates fcc lattice-like nanotrusses are superior to most existing mechanically robust thermal insulators. To showcase the scale independency of the unprecedented properties of the proposed nano-architected metamaterials, thermal and mechanical properties of their macroscopic counterparts are studied using standard mechanics multiscale homogenization. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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