New Paper in European Journal of Mechanics/A Solids
In this latest paper, we evaluate the impact of the molar mass distribution on the mechanical behavior of polymer nanocomposites. To this end, we employ coarse-grained molecular dynamics with a Kremer–Grest bead–spring model on samples with varying average molar mass and dispersity. We observe the expected increase in the mechanical performance for a larger average molar mass. However, our results indicate that the unimodal molar mass distribution does not impact the mechanical behavior in the investigated dispersity range. Hence, this work is an important step towards understanding the complex structure-property relations of PNCs, which is essential to unlocking their full potential.
Open Acces Link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euromechsol.2024.105379