Micromechanical modeling and analysis of effective properties of quantum dot-embedded smart nanocomposite materials
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Date
2020
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University of New Brunswick
Abstract
This research thesis focuses on the micromechanical modeling and analysis of anisotropic quantum dot-embedded smart nanocomposite materials with piezoelectrically active constituents. Asymptotic homogenization method is used to obtain a closed-form solution for the static three-dimensional deformations of smart nanocomposite materials with a periodic structure. Coupled force balance and Maxwell's equations are solved with appropriate boundary conditions. The model makes it possible to determine both local fields (elastic and electric) and effective properties (elastic, piezoelectric and dielectric coefficients) of the smart nanocomposites by solving the three-dimensional local 'unit-cell' problems. These problems are universal in nature and can be applied to study various 3D material structures of interest.
The work continues to illustrate the effectiveness of the model by analyzing the elastic, piezoelectric, and dielectric properties of ZnO quantum dot (QD) glass FRP smart nanocomposite of laminated structure. Finite element analysis of the laminated smart structure is performed to numerically obtain the elastic, piezoelectric, and dielectric properties using ABAQUS® finite element (FE) package. Results from both micromechanical and numerical methods in terms of effective (average) material properties are compared in relation to the volume fraction of participating constituents (fiber, polymer, QD) in the host structure. The results demonstrate a close agreement between the analytical and numerical models.