Topological Design of Graphene with Enhances Fracture Toughness

Abstract eng:
Graphene has exhibited ultra-high Young’s modulus and tensile strength, but very low fracture toughness which is close to that of an ideally brittle solid. As a typical example of 2D materials, the feature of the atomic thin thickness of graphene preserves flexibility for outof-plane topological design so as to improve its mechanical and physical properties, such as fracture toughness. Here, we propose a novel methodology based on phase field crystal method to construct a curved graphene which conforms to a targeted arbitrary 3D surface, and in which topological defects (pentagon-heptagon pairs) are generated spontaneously to comply the surface curvature. Aiming at improving fracture toughness by introducing effective energy dissipation mechanisms, two patterns (strip and blister) are systematically designed and studied. The results show that (i) the fracture toughness of the designed graphene is increased significantly, and (ii) the underlying toughening mechanisms come from crack tip blunting/trapping, daughter crack bridging, and dislocation sheltering.

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