Copyright © 2026 Authors retain the copyright of this article. This article is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

@article{158205,
        author = {Bhavesh Kanchan Bhagat  and Dr R D Patil and Shri K K Chaudhari and Dr D A Warke },
        title = {Evaluation of Mechanical Properties of Carbon Nanotubes Composite by Finite Element Method},
        journal = {International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology},
        year = {},
        volume = {9},
        number = {9},
        pages = {94-102},
        issn = {2349-6002},
        url = {https://ijirt.org/article?manuscript=158205},
        abstract = {Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) possess extremely high stiffness, strength and resilience and may provide ultimate reinforcing materials for the development of nanocomposites. Evaluating the effective material properties of such nanoscale materials is one of the important tasks. Simulations using molecular dynamics and continuum mechanics models can play significant roles in this development. Currently the continuum approach seems to be the only feasible approach for such large scale analysis. 
The finite element method based continuum mechanics has been used to evaluate the mechanical properties of CNT based composites. The cylindrical as well as square representative volume element (RVEs) has been utilized in these simulations. Formulas to extract the effective material constants from solutions for the square RVEs under the axial stretch load is derived based on the elasticity theory. An extended rule of mixtures, based on the strength of materials theory for estimating the effective Young’s modulus in the axial direction of the RVE, is applied for comparisons of FEM results. It has been observed that the addition of the CNTs in a matrix at volume fractions of only about 3.6%, the stiffness of the composite is increased by 33% for long CNT at Et⁄Em = 10, whereas there is no much improvement in stiffness has been noticed in case of short CNTS at Et⁄Em =10. Effectiveness of composites is evaluated in terms of various dimensions like thickness, diameter and length of CNT. These results suggest that short CNTs in a matrix may not be as effective as long CNTs in reinforcing a composite.
The comparisons of mechanical properties between cylindrical and square RVE have also been made for single CNT bases composite. Since the mechanical properties obtained through cylindrical RVE overestimates the youngs’s modulus thereby the square RVE is preferred for the simulations. The mechanical properties using cylindrical and square RVEs are also evaluated for multiple CNTs based composites and compared with each other. 
},
        keywords = {carbon nanotubes, finite element method, RVE, CNT},
        month = {},
        }