Modeling Frequency- and Temperature-Invariant Dissipative Behaviors of Randomly Entangled Carbon Nanotube Networks under Cyclic Loading

Recent experiments have shown that entangled networks of carbon nanotubes exhibit temperature- and frequency-invariant dissipative behaviors under cyclic loading. We have performed coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations which show that these intriguing phenomena can be attributed to the unstable attachments/detachments between individual carbon nanotubes induced by van der Waals interactions. We show that this behavior can be described by a triboelastic constitutive model. This study highlights the promise of carbon nanomaterials for energy absorption and dissipation under extreme conditions.