ABSTRACT
In the present paper, the delamination behaviour of nano-reinforced composite double
cantilever beam is numerically studied. Specifically, it evaluates the influence of
nanofillers on the reinforcement of adhesively bonded layer under mode-I fracture
toughness using multiscale modelling. In this novel approach, we couple coarse-grain
molecular dynamics with continuum mechanics. The molecular dynamics domain and
the finite element domain are overlapped in a handshaking subdomain, The
implementation of coarse-grain molecular dynamics radically reduces the size of the
problem. An explicit algorithm coupling the two methodologies was developed and used
to determine the energy release rates of cohesive cracks in adhesively bonded
composite joints with varying amount of nano-reinforcement in the adhesive layer. Both
the quality of the prediction of the multiscale model and the influence of the nanofillers
are evaluated and discussed.