Mechanical properties and behavior of glass fiber-reinforced silica aerogel nanocomposites: Insights from all-atom simulations

The primary goal of this work is to understand the influence of the amount and dimensions of glass fibers in silica aerogel matrix on the mechanical properties using molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. By adding the glass fibers, the tensile strength, elastic modulus and compressive behavior of silica aerogel were significantly improved due to the resistance offered to bending and axial deformation of the fibers. Moreover, this work proposes a linear relationship between the elastic modulus and density of nanocomposites for particular fiber dimensions. The extraordinary mechanical performance of the proposed nanocomposites has a broad spectrum of mechanical-loading applications. (C) 2019 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.