Buckling of graphene embedded in polymer matrix under compression

Understanding the mechanical behaviors of graphene under different stress states is crucial to their applications. Comparing with the bucking behavior of free standing graphene under compression, the monolayer graphene embedded in the polymer matrix has a higher critical buckling load and smaller atomic length scale wavelengths as well as buckling amplitudes. In this paper, the molecular dynamics (MD) method is adopted to study the buckling behaviors of embedded graphene under uniaxial compression. Two MD models are built, namely the hybrid MD/continuum nanomechanics model and the full MD model. Periodical boundary conditions are applied in the MD simulations. Graphene sheets with different aspect ratios are considered and it is observed that the critical buckling strain of graphene sheets embedded in polymer matrix is independent of their aspect ratios. The current simulation results match well with the reported experimental results. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that the current simulation method can produce clear buckling shapes, which are difficult to observe in nanoscale experiments.