Analytical and Numerical Studies of the Effect of Impact Forces on Polymer/Clay Nanocomposites

The high costs of experimental works on the nanocomposites can be reduced through implementation of analytical and numerical studies. To study the effect of impact energy on the nanocomposites, a nanocomposite composed
of polyurethane and clay nanoparticles is selected as a case study. The finite element modeling is carried out using the ANSYS software, and the impact analysis is performed using LSDYNA. Three distinct regions: namely the polymer, the clay particles, and the interface are considered in the modeling. Subsequently, the effects of staggering factor, vertical distance between nanoparticles, aspect ratio, and volume fraction of clay nanoparticles on the reaction of the nanocomposite to the impact forces are investigated. The magnitude of the displacement of the specimen and the maximum force at the contact point are important parameters in impact analysis. In order to study the effect of structural parameters, two different impact velocities are considered, and for each 160 finite element modelings are performed. In each case, the effective parameters together with their limitations are considered. Different graphs are presented and analyzed for the effect of every structural parameter on the impact. The results of this study show that for a nanocomposite of aspect ratio equal 100, staggering factor of 0.5, and exfoliation factor of 0.51, the volume fraction of the clay nanoparticles is the range of 1.5 to 3 percent which can be considered opti-mum as far as the effect of impact forces are concerned.