Composite Structures 94 (2012) 23652372

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Composite Structures
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/compstruct

Dynamic and static fracture analyses of graphene sheets and carbon nanotubes
S.A. Niaki a, J.R. Mianroodi a, M. Sadeghi b, R. Naghdabadi a,b,
a
b

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Sharif University of Technology, PO Box 11155-9567, Tehran, Iran
Institute for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, Sharif University of Technology, PO Box 14588-89694, Tehran, Iran

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Available online 13 March 2012
Keywords:
Static fracture
Dynamic fracture
Wave propagation
Graphene sheet
Carbon nanotube
Finite element method

a b s t r a c t
Dynamic and static fracture properties of Graphene Sheets (GSs) and Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) with
different sizes are investigated based on an empirical inter-atomic potential function that can simulate
nonlinear large deections of nanostructures. Dynamic fracture of GSs and CNTs are studied based on
wave propagation analysis in these nanostructures in a wide range of strain-rates. It is shown that wave
propagation velocity is independent from strain-rate while dependent on the nanostructure size and
approaches to 2.2  104 m/s for long GSs. Also, fracture strain shows extensive changes versus strain-rate,
which has not been reported before. Fracture stress is determined as 115 GPa for GSs and 122 GPa for
CNTs which are independent from the strain-rate; in contrast to the fracture strain. Moreover, fracture
strain drops at extremely high strain-rates for GSs and CNTs. These features are considered as capability
of carbon nanostructures for reinforcing nanocomposites especially under impact loadings up to high
strain-rates.
2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Graphene Sheets (GSs) and Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are two
types of nanostructures that have attracted much attention for their
signicant mechanical and electrical properties. These structures
have shown wonderful properties like high Youngs modulus
[13], high resonance frequency [46] and unique electrical behavior [7,8]. Mechanical and electrical properties make GSs and CNTs
superior candidates as reinforcing elements for composites [9,10].
Different experimental, numerical and analytical methods have
been used by researchers in different elds to investigate properties
of GSs and CNT [1012]. However, a lot of investigations are still
needed to bring these structures superior features to different
applications.
Tensile strength of GSs and CNTs, as the strongest materials
known up to now [13], are important for their applications especially in nanocomposites. Yamamoto et al. [11] observed failure
of multi-walled carbon nanotubes during crack opening in a CNT
based alumina composite using transmission electron microscope.
They concluded that using CNT as reinforcing element can lead to
composites with higher fracture toughness. Many studies have
been carried out to investigate fracture evolution, ultimate stress
and ultimate strain of these nanostructures. Yu et al. [14] measured tensile strength of multi-wall CNTs using an Atomic Force
Corresponding author at: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Sharif
University of Technology, PO Box 11155-9567, Tehran, Iran. Tel.: +98 21
66005716; fax: +98 21 66000021.
E-mail address: naghdabd@sharif.edu (R. Naghdabadi).
0263-8223/$ - see front matter 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compstruct.2012.02.027

Microscopy (AFM) to load on a set of 19 CNTs. They reported tensile strength of the outermost layer 1163 GPa. In another study,
Yu et al. [15] obtained fracture strain of 5.3% or lower for eight
ropes consisting of single-wall CNTs. They tted force-strain data
to a model assuming the load was carried by single-wall CNTs on
the perimeter of each rope. Based on the experimental measurements, they obtained an average value of 30 GPa for breaking
strength of 15 CNTs. Belytschko et al. [16] studied nanotubes fracture using modied Morse potential. They investigated effect of
chirality as well as defects on the nanotubes fracture by Molecular
Mechanics (MMs) and Molecular Dynamics (MDs) methods. Also,
Tserpes et al. [17,18] used an atomistic progressive fracture model
to study effects of the StoneWales defects on tensile and fracture
behavior of zigzag, armchair and chiral single-wall CNTs. In their
work, modied Morse potential was applied to simulate interatomic forces of the CC bonds. In addition, Xiao et al. [19,20]
investigated effects of the multiple StoneWales defects on
mechanical properties of GSs and CNTs using an atomistic nite
bond element model. They examined variation of ultimate stress,
strain at failure and Youngs modulus of GSs and CNTs as a function
of the distance between two defects aligned in the axial and
circumferential directions as well as the nanostructure size.
Strain-rate is one of the most important mechanical factors in
analysis and design of mechanical systems since most of materials
show different behavior in deformations with different strain-rates.
This factor, similarly, can affect fracture behavior of nanostructures.
Logarithmic dependence of CNTs fracture stress on strain-rate at
different temperatures was reported by Wei et al. [21] using MD
simulations in 105103 ps1 range of strain-rate. In this range,

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no signicant dependence of the fracture strain on the strain-rate

was observed. Recently, Zhao and Aluru [22] have examined the
dependence of the fracture stress and strain of GSs on temperature
and strain-rate employing MD simulations. Similarly as in Ref. [21],
no signicant change in the fracture strain versus the strain-rate
was observed, as fracture in the strain-rates of 104101 ps1
was simulated. It is noted that the minor change of the fracture
strain in the considered ranges of strain-rate is due to the extremely
high fundamental frequency of GSs and CNTs [46,23], and high
wave propagation velocity in these nanostructures [2426].
In this paper, we study dynamic and static fracture mechanics
of GSs and CNTs. In this regard, tensile wave propagation in these
nanostructures is studied. Based on the wave propagation mechanism, dependence of fracture stress and fracture strain on the
strain-rate is explored for different sizes of GSs and CNTs in the
strain-rates 103101 ps1, which is higher than those studied before. For this purpose, we use the hybrid atomisticstructural element which was introduced in [6,27] by Sadeghi and Naghdabadi.
This element is based on empirical interatomic potentials and
takes the nonlinearity of atomic forces into account. Equation of
motion is solved using velocity Verlet integration algorithm [28],
and GSs and CNTs fracture stress and strain are obtained. In the
simulated strain-rate range, fracture strain shows extensive
changes, in contrast to the dynamic fracture of materials in
macro-scale. The new trend observed for nanostructures fracture
strain is explained completely based on the wave propagation
mechanism in them. In addition, in the static fracture, effects of
StoneWales defects on the fracture stress and strain are examined
and compared with the data available in the literature.

carbon nanostructures. Using the structural mechanics approach,

nodal displacements represent the movement of carbon atoms and
nodal forces represent interatomic forces experienced by each atom.
The element has been named the hybrid atomisticstructural element to reect this connection. A schematic of this element is shown
in Fig. 1. In this element, each node has three spatial degrees of
freedom.
Considering the six node hexagonal element, the nodal coordinate vector at a given time, t, is:

fqge q1 ; q2 ; q3 ; . . . ; q18 T
x1 t; y1 t; z1 t; . . . ; x6 t; y6 t; z6 tT

The internal nodal forces and tangential stiffness matrix components are dened as follows:

fiint q

dU
q
dqi

K ij q

@2U
q i; j 1; . . . ; 18
@qi @qj

where U is the potential energy of the element and qi are the nodal
degrees of freedom. The derivations have been carried out and the
element stiffness and internal forces have been derived. The
detailed procedure of deriving the hybrid atomisticstructural
element equations can be found in Refs. [6,27].
3. Solution method
The equation of motion to be solved can be written as follows:

2. Modeling

ff

In carbon based nanostructures, like CNTs or GSs, atoms are

bonded by strong sp2 covalent bonds. In order to study these structures, an appropriate interatomic potential must be used.
TersoffBrenner and Modied Morse are well known potentials
that have been used for determining mechanical properties of
nanostructures [17,18,29]. In this work, we use the modied Morse
potential plus a dihedral term, which can be written as follows:

bonds

U ijstretch

U ijk
angle

in-plane angles

n
o
U ijstretch De 1  expbr ij  r 0 2  1
U ijk
angle

1
kh hijk  h0 2 1 ksextic hijk  h0 4
2

U ijkl
dihedral ku 1  cos uijkl

U ijkl
dihedral

out-of -plane angles

2
i

ext

g
g  ff int g Mfu
ext

where {f } and {f } are external and internal nodal force vectors,

g is
respectively. [M] is the mass matrix of the structure and fu
the nodal acceleration vector. Since studying fracture properties of
the nanostructures corresponds to large deformations, Eq. (8)
would be nonlinear with respect to the nodal displacement vector,
{u}. There are many solution methods for solving nonlinear equation of motion. One of the most widely used methods is the explicit
time integration. The explicit method is well suited to dynamic nonlinear problems, as the integration algorithm is not affected by the
source of nonlinearity in the problem [31]. Solving Eq. (8), the acceleration vector is found in the form:

gt M1 ff ext g  ff int gt

fu

where index t represents time dependency.

In molecular structures, concentrated point masses result in a
diagonal mass matrix. Thus, Eq. (9) is reduced to a simple algebraic

U ijstretch and U ijk

angle are taken from the modied Morse potential function introduced by Belytschko et al. [16]. These two terms account
for potential energies due to the CC bond stretching and angle
bending between adjacent bonds, respectively. The third term in
Eq. (1), U ijkl
dihedral , is due to the dihedral bond rotation. This term is
adapted from the CHARMM interatomic potential function [30]. This
potential has been implemented in a hybrid atomisticstructural
element introduced previously in Refs. [6,27]. This element has a
polygon shape that is specially designed to simulate carbon nanostructures. The word hybrid is chosen to reect the fact that the
formulation of this element is obtained using an atomistic model
in the structural mechanics framework. On one hand, inter-atomic
interactions and the movement of atoms are considered in the
formulation and on the other hand, structural stiffness, nodal forces,
and nodal displacements are used. Moreover, in this hybrid element,
each node represents a carbon atom in the hexagonal lattice of

int

Fig. 1. Schematic of the hybrid atomisticstructural element.

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g. In the velocity Verlet algorithm, the following steps are taken

fu
to integrate the discretized equation of motion during the solution
procedure:
_ t1Dt fug
_ t 12 fu
gt Dt.
Step (1) fug
2
_ t1Dt Dt.
Step (2) fugtDt fugt fug
2
gtDt using Eq. (9) and fugtDt resulted
Step (3) Calculation of fu
from step 2.
_ tDt u_ t1Dt 12 fu_ tDt gDt.
Step (4) fug
2

4. Nanostructures fracture analysis

Fig. 2. Forcedisplacement curve for a 4.92  2.41 nm GS under static tensile

loading. Fracture point is determined considering a sudden decrease in the tensile
force.

form rather than the matrix form. Use of the diagonal mass matrix
signicantly reduces the calculation time because there is no need
to calculate the inverse of the mass matrix.
In this paper we have used velocity Verlet integration algorithm
[28] to obtain nodal displacements, {u}, from nodal accelerations

Tensile fracture is dened as a condition in which the material

cannot sustain any more tensile load; therefore, separation will occur [32]. Properties like fracture strain and stress are important
parameters in mechanical design of Nano-Electro Mechanical Systems (NEMSs) as well as nanocomposites. There are two fracture
regimes named static and dynamic fractures. Static fracture occurs
when loading is applied slowly enough, compared to wave propagation velocity in the material. This regime corresponds to a very
low strain-rate. In static regime of fracture, inertial forces are so
small that they do not affect the fracture behavior. In contrast,

Fig. 3. Energy contours for tensile wave propagation in a 4.92  2.41 nm GS under dynamic loading during 1.82 ps with strain-rate of 0.102 ps1 (this gure is in color only in
the electronic version).

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S.A. Niaki et al. / Composite Structures 94 (2012) 23652372

xed end, and a displacement with a given constant velocity is

applied to the moving end along the structure length. Fracture
under different strain-rates is simulated by changing the value of
the applied velocity. Explicit time integration method is used to
obtain forcedisplacement behavior of GSs and CNTs by solving
the equation of motion numerically. For very slowly applied
displacements which correspond to static loading, the fracture
point on the forcedisplacement curve is marked by a noticeable
decrease in the force. In Fig. 2 forcedisplacement curve for a GS
under static loading is presented. As it is noted in the gure, fracture point is determined considering a sudden decrease in the
applied force. In the static fracture, reaction forces of two ends
with predened boundary conditions are the same. Hence, determination of the fracture strain and stress is straightforward in
the static analysis as follows:
Fig. 4. Wave propagation velocity versus moving end velocity for different lengths
of GSs.

rf ;CNT
ef

Ff

pDh

rf ;GS

Ff
wh

DL f
L

10

11

where D is the CNT diameter, w is width of the GS and h is their

thickness. Also, L is the initial length of the CNT or GS, Ff is the reaction force and DLF is the displacement at the fracture moment.
In the dynamic fracture analysis, reaction forces at the two ends
of the nanostructure are different. Thus, nding the fracture point
on the forcedisplacement curves requires considering reaction
forces on both ends. In some cases, fracture occurs at the xed
end and in other cases, it happens at the moving end. Consequently, the forcedisplacement curves should be obtained for
both xed and moving ends, and the fracture point is determined
by comparing the two forcedisplacement curves.
5. Wave propagation in nanostructures
Fig. 5. Wave propagation velocity versus length of GS.

inertial forces will become considerable when the loads are applied
on the material fast. Velocity of the applied displacement can, drastically, change fracture behavior in the dynamic fracture.
In this work, fracture behavior of nanostructures and the strainrate effects on the fracture of these structures are studied. GSs and
CNTs with different sizes are modeled using the hybrid atomistic
structural element. Displacement boundary conditions are applied
to the nanostructures at two ends; xed and moving ones. For this
purpose, displacements in all directions are constrained for the

When the velocity boundary condition is applied to the moving

end of the nanostructure, waves of tensile strain propagate in it.
The wave fronts are initiated from the moving end frequently,
and increase strain energy of the carbon cells, modeled with
hexagonal hybrid atomisticstructural elements, upon reaching
them. Fig. 3 shows energy contours of such strain waves in a GS
during wave propagation. These waves propagate in the structure
and reect from the ends. Passing time, more waves initiate from
the moving end, so more energy is received by the nanostructure;
energy of the waves add up, thus the strain energy of the cells
increase. Consequently, fracture occurs.

Fig. 6. StoneWales defects on CNT considered in static fracture (a) StoneWales type 1 for zigzag, (b) StoneWales type 2 for zigzag, and (c) StoneWales for armchair.

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S.A. Niaki et al. / Composite Structures 94 (2012) 23652372

Table 1
Comparison between fracture stress and strain for different pristine and defected CNTs from present work and Refs. [16,18].
Nanotube

Length (nm)

Diameter (nm)

(12, 12) Pristine

(12, 12) SW
(20, 0) Pristine
(20, 0) SW-1
(20, 0) SW-2
(5, 5) Pristine
(5, 5) SW
(18, 18) Pristine
(18, 13) SW
(16, 8) Pristine

4.18
4.18
4.19
4.19
4.19
2.95
2.95
5.91
5.91
5.57

1.63
1.63
1.57
1.57
1.57
0.68
0.68
2.44
2.44
1.68

Fracture stress (GPa)

Fracture strain

Ref. [18]

Ref. [16]

Present work

Ref. [18]

Ref. [16]

Present work

121.86
100
97.68
97.68
94.86
122.54
92.44
120.63
100

111.87

93.46

106.14

120.26
98.86
94.36
83.02
83.56
121.24
97.72
120.46
97.97
106.47

19.61
11.96
15.75
15.75
13.36
19.64
11.51
18.96
12.2

18.75

15.77

13.36

17.12

20.64
10.88
16.39
11.26
10.24
21.30
11.21
21.06
11.65
16.14

Fig. 8. Dynamic loading with extremely high strain-rate (0.802 ps1) causing
immediate fracture for 4.92  2.42 nm GS (this gure is in color only in the
electronic version).

Fig. 7. (a) Fracture stress vs. strain-rate. (b) Fracture strain vs. strain-rate for
4.92  2.42 nm GS showing four main regions.

Energy and velocity of the propagated wave fronts are two of the
most important characteristics that determine the fracture procedure. In order to calculate the velocity of the waves, two regions
with an arbitrary distance are considered in the GS. The time needed
for the wave to reach from one of the regions to another is calculated
from the force-time curve of the regions. As a result, wave propagation velocity is obtained and presented versus moving end velocity
in Fig. 4 for different lengths of the GSs. As it is seen, tensile wave
propagation velocity is independent of the moving end velocity
and has the value of 2.2  1042.4  104 m/s for different lengths
of GSs. Tensile wave propagation velocity in a long GS, obtained
p
from the classic analytical equation V wav e E=q, is also presented
in Fig. 4. The well-known value of 1.0 TPa is used for the Youngs
modulus, E. Also, density of the GS is determined from equation
3

n
q 12:0110
where n is the number of the GS carbon atoms,
LwhNA

and L, w and h are length, width and thickness (0.34 nm) of the
GS, respectively. Furthermore, NA = 6.022  1023 is Avogadros constant. It is noted that for different loading velocities on the GSs, the

tensile wave propagation velocity remains constant for each GS, in

general. Fig. 5 shows wave propagation velocity versus GS length.
As seen, this velocity is slightly dependent on the length in small
size GSs and converges to the constant value of 2.2  104 m/s for
long GSs.
In contrast to the wave propagation velocity, wave energy, Uw,
is dependent on the moving end velocity, and increases by increasing the velocity of applied loads. When the moving end velocity
increases, the value of the kinematic energy received in unit time
by the system increases. Consequently, the energy of each wave
front increases.
6. Results and discussion
6.1. Nanostructures static fracture
In the static analysis, the displacement boundary condition is
applied to the moving end so slowly in comparison to the wave
propagation velocity that all parts of the nanostructure undergo
simultaneous stretching. In other words, the strain wave fronts are
initiated from the moving end, and propagate in the nanostructure.
These wave fronts are reected by the xed and moving ends
frequently. When the moving end velocity is low, energy of the wave
fronts are not enough to initiate fracture in the nanostructure. Passing time, more strain wave fronts are initiated and their energy are
added to the wave fronts energy that exist in the structure. Thus,

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S.A. Niaki et al. / Composite Structures 94 (2012) 23652372

Fig. 9. (a) Fracture stress vs. strain-rate (b). Fracture strain vs. strain-rate for three
different lengths of GSs with width of 2.42 nm.

Fig. 11. (a) Fracture stress vs. strain-rate. (b) Fracture strain vs. strain-rate for
different armchair CNTs.

6.2. Nanostructures dynamic fracture

Fig. 10. Fracture strain vs. velocity of the applied displacement for three different
lengths of GSs with width of 2.42 nm.

energy level of the hexagonal cells increases, and fracture occurs

when energy of a cell attains a critical value. We denote the critical
energy required for the fracture of the nanostructure by Uf.
Tserpes and Papanikos [18] used ANSYS BEAM4 element for
static fracture analysis of CNTs. They assigned nonlinear behavior
of the CC bonds to the beam element using a stepwise procedure
of progressive fracture analysis. They employed modied Morse as
the interatomic potential in this procedure and studied different
sizes of pristine and defected CNTs. In this paper, we have studied
fracture of the same CNTs using hybrid atomisticstructural
element as shown in Fig. 6 with StoneWales types 1 and 2. The
results for fracture stress and strain of pristine and defected CNTs
are presented in Table 1. Also, the results from Refs. [16,18] are
shown in the table. As it is seen, there is a good agreement between
results of this work with those of Refs. [16,18].

In this section, dynamic fracture behavior of GSs and CNTs are

investigated for models with different geometries under different
strain-rates. As mentioned in the previous sections for this regime,
forces at both xed and moving ends of the nanostructures should
be considered. As a result, forcedisplacement curves are obtained
for each end and fracture point is determined. Fracture stress, as
well as fracture strain, versus strain-rate is presented in Fig. 7 for
a GS with length of 4.92 nm and width of 2.42 nm. As shown in
Fig. 7-a, the fracture stress of the GS is about 115 GPa and is independent of the strain-rate. In contrast, the fracture strain shows
abrupt changes for different strain-rates. We can identify four main
regions in the fracture strain diagram (Fig. 7b). Region 1 corresponds to very low strain-rates, approximately lower than
101 ps1 For these values of the strain-rates, loads are applied
very slowly relative to wave propagation velocity in the GS. Thus,
the forcedisplacement curve for region 1 is similar to Fig. 2 which
represents fracture occurrence in the static regime.
In region 2 of Fig. 7b, fracture strain decreases by increasing the
moving end velocity. When the moving end velocity increases, total displacement of the moving end, DL, will linearly increase
(DL = mt, where v is the moving end velocity and t is the elapsed
time). On the other hand, the moving end velocity determines
the tensile wave energy, Uw. This energy roughly corresponds to
the square of the wave amplitude. Thus, we can deduce that the
energy carried by the tensile waves is related to the square of
the moving end velocity. This energy determines the elapsed time,
t, up to the fracture occurrence. More waves energy means less
time needed for the waves to reach the critical energy required
for the fracture. In this way, we may conclude that the elapsed
time is inversely proportional to the square of the moving end
velocity, i.e. t / 1/m2. Hence, the moving end displacement, DL, as
well as tensile strain, is inversely proportional to the moving end

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2371

Fig. 12. Energy contours for tensile wave propagation in a (12, 12) CNT under dynamic loading during 0.3492 ps with strain-rate of 0.406 ps1GS (this gure is in color only in
the electronic version).

velocity. i.e. DL / 1/v. This explains the descending behavior of the

fracture strain with respect to the moving end velocity or strainrate in region 2 of Fig. 7b.
In region 3 of Fig. 7b, fracture strain increases by increasing the
moving end velocity. In this region, the strain wave front propagates in the GS while the strain energy of the wave front is not sufcient for fracture to occur. Wave front reaches the xed end, and
reects. Wave front amplitude near the xed boundary is enhanced since the reected wave adds to the incident wave, giving
an energy concentration in adjacent cells that is twice greater than
energy before reection, similar to the acoustic pressure zone effect, results in sufcient strain energy for fracture in cells adjacent
to the xed end. In other words, the wave front which propagates
from the moving end does not have enough energy for an immediate fracture, but obtains sufcient energy when reaching the pressure zone; xed boundary. In fact, we have 0.5Uf < Uw < Uf in this
region where Uw is tensile wave energy, and Uf is the critical energy
required for the fracture. Since the wave velocity is independent
from the moving end velocity, the elapsed time up to the fracture
occurrence is equal for all the strain-rates corresponding to region
3. It means that increasing the moving end velocity is accompanied
by an increase in DLf before the wave front reaches the xed end.
In other words, the GS undergoes more strain until fracture occurs.
Passing region 3 of Fig. 7b, fracture strain decreases drastically
at strain-rate 0.55 ps1 with increasing the moving end velocity.
When strain-rates are in the range corresponding to region 4, the
strain wave front has sufcient energy for an immediate fracture.
Such a high-energy wave front is initiated from the moving end.
As a result, the energy of the adjacent cells of this end is increased
to the fracture energy immediately. Thus, fracture strain is noticeably low. Also, it can be concluded that the wave front energy corresponding to region 4 is more than the energy needed for the cells
fracture; Uf < Uw. Fig. 8 shows energy contours of wave propagation
in a GS under strain-rate corresponding to region 4 of Fig. 7b.
Immediate fracture of GS is seen due to high wave energy propagated from the moving end. In addition, as it is seen in Fig. 7b,
region 4 starts at extremely high strain-rate (about 0.6 1/ps), which
indicated that GSs and CNTs show brittle behavior at extremely
high moving end velocities or strain-rates.
Similar analyses were done for GSs with different lengths
(Fig. 9). As observed in Fig. 9a, fracture stress is independent of
the geometry and strain-rate. As it is seen in Fig. 9b, strain-rates
corresponding to different regions change for different lengths of
GSs. It is in agreement with what we have explained for dynamic
fracture. For instance, region 3 (as dened in Fig. 7b) starts for a
GS with lengths L at strain-rate e_ 1 and total change in length of
DLf. Assume it takes time t for the propagated wave front to reach
the xed end, reect, and result in twice energy intensity at the
adjacent cells of the xed end. For another GS with length KL, it
takes approximately times Kt as velocity of the strain wave front
is constant, so total change in length is KDLf. Therefore, strain-rate
for initiation of region
. 3 (reaching the wave front to the xed end)
K DL
will be e_ 2 KL f
Kt K1 e_ 1 for GS with length KL. That is, the

strain-rate for initiation of region 3 at a GS with length L is K times

more than that for a GS with length KL.
Fig. 10 shows fracture strain with respect to the moving end
velocity for different lengths of GSs. It is seen that a sudden decrease in the fracture strain occurs at moving end velocity of
2600 m/s for different lengths of GSs. According to the previous
paragraph, having the same moving end velocity for starting of different regions for GSs with different lengths can be justied. For
example, starting velocity of region 3 is v 1 DLf =t for GS with
length L, and this value is v 2 K DLf =Kt v 1 for GS with length
KL. As a result, fracture strain carves versus the moving end velocity are the same for GSs with different lengths. Similar explanation
is true for other regions.
Fracture behavior for armchair CNTs with two different diameters and different lengths is presented in Fig. 11. As it is seen, CNTs
show similar fracture behavior as the GSs. Fracture stress is
approximately 122 GPa and remains constant at different strainrates for all CNTs with different diameters and lengths. Therefore,
it is concluded that fracture stress of CNTs is more than that of GSs
which is approximately 115 GPa. Furthermore, fracture strain of
CNTs versus strain-rate is similar to that of the GSs. For CNTs similar to GSs, four main regions can be specied in the fracture strain
curve versus strain-rate. The tensile wave propagation analyses
corresponding to these regions are similar to those for GSs.
Fig. 12 shows energy contours of tensile strain waves corresponding to region 3 in a (12, 12) CNT with length of 4.92 nm during wave propagation. In this gure, propagation and reection of
tensile waves from the moving and xed ends are seen. As previously mentioned for region 3, reaching the wave front to the xed
end results in twice energy intensity at the cells adjacent to this
end, so causes the fracture occurrence.

7. Conclusions
In this paper, the hybrid atomisticstructural element was used
to investigate static fracture of GSs and CNTs with different lengths
and StoneWales defects. For this purpose, different nanostructures models were solved using explicit nite element method under tensile loadings. Considering stressstrain curves, the fracture
stress and strain were calculated for the GSs and CNTs. Also, the
weakening effect of the StoneWales defect on the static fracture
stress and strain of the CNTs was studied. The results are in good
agreement with those of the previous MM and MD simulations.
In addition, dynamic fracture of GSs and CNTs were investigated
under tensile loading represented by moving end velocities. For this
purpose, tensile wave propagation in the nanostructures was studied and the dependence of fracture stress and strain were determined in a wide range of strain-rates. It was shown that the wave
front propagation velocity is independent from the moving end
velocity, but it depends on the size of the nanostructures. Tensile
wave propagation velocity decreases slightly in nanostructures as
the length increases, and asymptotes to 2.2  104 m/s for long

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GSs which
is in agreement with the classic analytical equation
p
V wav e E=q. This can be used in NEMS devices since measuring
the wave front velocity in nanostructures is more practical than
Youngs modulus E.
Based on the simulated models with different geometries, dynamic fracture stresses were determined approximately 115 GPa
and 122 GPa for different sizes of GSs and armchair CNTs, respectively. Although the fracture stress is independent from the
strain-rate, the fracture strain shows high dependency on the
strain-rate. Extensive changes in the fracture strain are observed
for strain-rates higher than 101 ps1. In contrast to the dynamic
fracture of materials in macro-scale, in the simulated nanostructures, the fracture strain increases in some ranges while decreases
in some other ranges of the strain-rates. Four main regions are
specied in the fracture strain curves versus strain-rate for GSs
and CNTs. In very low strain-rates, which correspond to static fracture, fracture strain is independent of the strain-rate. Fracture
strain decreases by increasing the moving end velocity up to
1520 m/s, which corresponds to the minimum energy required
for fracture at the xed end. Then, the fracture strain increases till
the moving end velocity attains the value of 2600 m/s, providing
the fracture energy at the moving end, and suddenly drops. High
fracture stress and drop of the fracture strain at extremely high
strain-rates for GSs and CNTs show their superior potential to be
used as reinforcing elements in the nanocomposites especially under impact loadings up to high strain-rates.
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