TY - JOUR A1 - Dmitriev, A. I. A1 - Häusler, Ines A1 - Wetzel, B. A1 - Zhang, G. A1 - Österle, Werner T1 - Modeling of the stress-strain behavior of an epoxy-based nanocomposite filled with silica nanoparticles T2 - Materials and Design N2 - The method of movable cellular automata (MCA) was applied to simulate the stress-strain behavior of a nano composite consisting of an epoxy matrix and 6 vol. % silica nano particles. The size of the elements used for modelling was fixed at 10 nm, corresponding approximately to the diameter of the filler particles. Since not only the stress-strain response of the two constituents but also debonding of neighboring particles and granular flow was taken into account, plastic deformation as well as crack initiation and propagation could be simulated with the model. Modelling results were compared with tensile test results of both, pure epoxy as well as the epoxy-6 vol. % SiO2 composite. Since assuming bulk properties of the two constituents did not yield satisfactory results, slight modifications of the nanoparticle response functions and nanostructures were tested numerically. Finally, it was observed that only the assumption of slightly increased strength properties of the epoxy yielded good correlation between experimental and modelling results. This was attributed to an increased cross linking of the epoxy caused by the presence of silica nano particles. PB - Elsevier KW - Nanocomposite KW - Polymer matrix composite KW - Stress-strain behavior KW - Modeling KW - Computational mechanics PY - 2016 UR - https://opus4.kobv.de/opus4-bam/frontdoor/index/index/docId/35596 AN - OPUS4-35596 SN - 0264-1275 VL - 89 SP - 950 EP - 956 AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany