Fracture analysis of CNT-reinforced composites under thermo-mechanical loading using XIGA

The carbon nanotube-reinforced composites with pre-existing crack are investigated for fracture analysis under thermo-mechanical loading using extended isogeometric analysis. Firstly, the vital properties such as equivalent mechanical and thermal properties (elastic modulus, Poisson’s ratio, fracture energy, fracture toughness, coefficient of thermal expansion, and thermal conductivity) are evaluated with a varying volume percentage of CNTs in the matrix. Multi-walled carbon nanotube and single-walled carbon nanotube are the two types of CNTs used to strengthen the composite. This research work is also aimed to provide a comparative study of the influence of mechanical and coupled thermo-mechanical load on stress intensity factor (SIFs). For the thermal loading condition, adiabatic crack is considered for the computational simulation. As it is essential to validate the accuracy, the results are compared and thus confirmed with other researches present in the literature. The authenticated results deduce that the fracture toughness and fracture energy enhance with the hike in the percentage of volume of CNTs in the matrix and the values of SIFs are on the drastic rise with the increment in the thermal loading when compared with increment in mechanical loading conditions.