A comparative study of the elasto-plastic properties for ceramic nanocomposites filled by graphene or graphene oxide nanoplates

As nanoscale reinforcements, the graphene and graphene oxide nanoplates exhibit distinct mechanical and physical properties. The determination of the effective elasto-plastic behavior of nanoplate/ceramic nanocomposites and the different filling effects of graphene and graphene oxide nanoplate deserve systematic investigation. In this work, we intend to uncover how the graphene and graphene oxide nanoplates affect the macroscopic elasto-plastic characteristics of ceramic matrix nanocomposites and what differences in both nanoplates enhancements. A homogenization model is first utilized for determining the effective elastic parameters of nanoplate/ceramic composite with a perfect interface. Then the slightly weakened interface model is introduced to characterize the sliding effects of nanoplates in a ceramic matrix, and the effective elastic parameters of such nanoplates filled composites incorporating the interfacial sliding effects are explicitly formulated. Furthermore, a nonlinear micromechanics model is developed to investigate the macroscopic elastoplasticity and the yield behavior of graphene and graphene oxide nanoplate-filled ceramic nanocomposites subjected to confining pressure. The filling effects of the two kinds of nanoplates on the mechanical properties of such nanocomposite are comparatively examined. The calculated results demonstrate that types of the nanoplates and the imperfect interfaces between nanoplates and ceramic matrix have significant influences on the effective elasto-plastic behaviors of the nanoplate composites.