Materials based design of structures: computational modeling of the mechanical behavior of gold-polymer nanocomposites

This is an open access article under the CCBY-NC-ND license. The impact of small scale geometric confinement on deformation mechanisms is subject of intense research in materials sciences nowadays. Nanoporous metals have a microstructure with an extremely high volume-specific surface content. Due to a very high local strength and a relatively regular interconnection of the nanoconstituents as well as a low mass density, nanoporous metals are very good candidates for strong and light-weight structural materials. The modeling of a modern nanocomposite material of gold-polymer is in the focus of the contribution. A gradient extended crystal plasticity theory is applied to the computation of the mechanical response of the metal part of the composite and an elastic-viscoplastic continuum model is used for the simulation of the polymer material. The gradient hardening contribution is included into the crystal plasticity model in order to study the influence of the ligament size. Numerical results of the deformation of the gold-polymer nanocomposite under compression are presented. Simulation results are compared to the corresponding experimental data