Blog posts

We report the direct molecular dynamics simulations for molecular ball bearings composed of fullerene molecules (C60 and C20) and multi-walled carbon nanotubes. The comparison of friction levels indicates that fullerene ball bearings have extremely low friction (with minimal frictional forces of  5.283×10^-7 nN/atom and  6.768×10^-7 nN/atom  for C60 and C20 bearings) and energy dissipation (lowest dissipation per cycle of  0.013 meV/atom  and  0.016 meV/atom  for C60 and C20 bearings). A single fullerene inside the ball bearings exhibits various motion statuses of mixed translation and rotation. The influences of the shaft's distortion on the long-ranged potential energy and normal force are discussed. The phonic dissipation mechanism leads to a non-monotonic function between the friction and the load rate for the molecular bearings.

The discovery of a new material type, graphene and extremely thin platelets of graphite, was discussed in several articles from my research group published in 1999:

Lu XK, Huang H, Nemchuk N, and Ruoff RS, Patterning of highly oriented pyrolytic graphite by oxygen plasma etching, APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS, 75, 193-195 (1999).

In the very beginning of 2007 I have four papers published or accepted (one is independent research and others are collaborated). All of them are the work done in my doctoral period. The topic is focusing on the enhancement of creep resistance of polymers by incorporating of nanofillers including particles and CNTs.

Tom Ting and I have recently developed a method of extending Stroh's anisotropic formalism to problems in three dimensions. The unproofed paper can be accessed at http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jbarber/Stroh.pdf .

I would like to share the research work I have been pursuing over the past four years. I believe, through this forum, I will be able to reach researchers with various backgrounds and expertise. Suggestions and comments from members will be very useful. I am also attaching links to preprints of manuscripts describing this work. Please follow these links:

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~vikramg/academic/Preprints/QC-OFDFT.pdf

The increasing use of fiber-reinforced composites accentuates the need for developing multi-axial fatigue failure models for these materials. In this article (attached), we proposed several multiaxial fatigue failure models for fiber-reinforced composites considering the contribution of mean and cyclic normal stress/strain and shear stress/strain at the plane of failure and examined their capability for predicting the fatigue life of the E-glass/epoxy composite materials.