Modeling frequency- and temperature-invariant dissipative behaviors of randomly entangled carbon nanotube networks under cyclic loading

XD Yang and PF He and HJ Gao, NANO RESEARCH, 4, 1191-1198 (2011).

DOI: 10.1007/s12274-011-0169-y

Recent experiments have shown that entangled networks of carbon nanotubes exhibit temperature- and frequency-invariant dissipative behaviors under cyclic loading. We have performed coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations which show that these intriguing phenomena can be attributed to the unstable attachments/detachments between individual carbon nanotubes induced by van der Waals interactions. We show that this behavior can be described by a triboelastic constitutive model. This study highlights the promise of carbon nanomaterials for energy absorption and dissipation under extreme conditions.

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