Peridynamic modelling and experimental verification of nanocomposite properties

Nanomodified epoxy resins have recently attracted the interest of the scientific community, since the addition of low concentrations of nanofillers results in enhanced mechanical, thermal and barrier properties. Modelling the mechanical properties of nanocomposites is of key importance to increase their reliability and expand their application fields. In this work, a peridynamics-based representative volume element model is implemented to estimate the effective tensile properties of nanocomposites. The newly developed algorithm allows to model randomly distributed nanofillers with different sizes, shapes, and orientations, and enables the simulation of interphase properties and nanofiller agglomerations. Numerical results are validated by performing tensile tests on specimens composed by epoxy resin nanomodified through the addition of montmorillonite clays. The versatility of the model is proved by a further comparison of the computed results with experimental data reported in literature.