In-plane compressive behavior of graphene-coated aluminum nano-honeycombs

Abstract

The in-plane compressive behaviors of aluminum (Al) nano-honeycombs (ANHCs) and graphene-coated ANHCs (GANHCs) are investigated by using the molecular dynamics (MD) and theoretical methods. The dependences of their mechanical properties on the crystalline direction and the relative mass density are examined. Our MD simulations show that the tensile strength, tensile energy absorption, in-plane elastic modulus and compressive strength of ANHCs can be significantly reinforced by graphene-coating, whereas the compressive energy absorption capacity of GANHCs until densification is lower than that of ANHCs. A modified Gibson-Ashby model is developed to estimate the in-plane Young’s modulus and compressive strength of GANHCs, which shows a good agreement with the MD results.