Comparison of computational efficiency of modeling approaches to prediction of damping behavior of nanoparticle-reinforced materials

Carbon nanotube-reinforced polymer-matrix composite materials (CNT-PMC) are now intensively studied; however, CNT-PMC damping behavior is rather contradictory result than plausible information. Therefore, it requires urgent investigations from multi-disciplinary viewpoint. The CNTreinforced material damping phenomenon is complex because of friction between nanotube and a matrix and the variety of other energy dissipation/fracture mechanisms involved, and because of the complex nature of the nanoparticles themselves, multi-walled structure etc. that are affect a damping. All of these mechanisms may be beneficial for dumping and/or add multifunctionality to engineering structures. It is worth noting that interfacial fracture energy is important and may play a great role for a total energy dissipated by the damping material. Particular advanced energy dissipation phenomena of CNT-reinforced polymeric materials can be explained by considerable interfacial fracture mechanics and bonging energy between CNT and polymeric molecular chains. Quantitative prediction of toughness would require a coupled and detailed modeling of the various damping / dynamic mechanisms and criteria for the different modes, which is at present still not feasible.

Computational simulation and modeling tools called as a Virtual Reality Environment (VRE) can help to understand many physical effects and predict the behavior of materials and machine components via computer-generated media. In the present paper, multiscale computational approaches to modeling of nanoparticle-reinforced composite materials and virtual reality engineering tools have been used to describe/model an intuitive interface of some CNT-reinforced materials to enable efficient design and synthesis of next generation materials and nanoscale devices. The paper presents a comparison between computational approaches to modeling of damping/dynamics of CNTreinforced composite materials so as to estimate a validity of proposed methods. The underlying mechanics of material has been partially simulated by the use of energy dissipation mechanisms and programmed by using fast multipole method FMM-BIEM [

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] accordingly. In the virtual working environment, the user can naturally grab and steer a nanoparticle, matrix and composite because the information flow between the user and the VRE is bidirectional and the user can influence the environment.