Abstract—Finite element method (FEM) has been widely used for numerical simulation of hardness tests on bulk material in order to analyze its deformation response and investigate the influence of indenter geometry, friction and material elastic and plastic properties. The present work is to develop representative volume element method for modelling of nanoindentation behavior of exfoliated Nylon66 /clay nanocomposite that has nonlinear elastic behavior using numerical simulation. A two dimensional simulation is done and the effect of indenter and specimen geometry on the response of hardness test is investigated.

Index Terms—Finite element, polymer/clay, nanocomposite, representative volume element method, spherical indenter.

A. Soleimani and M. Saadatfar are with the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Najafabad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran (e-mail:soleimani@pmc.iaun.ac.ir; msaadatfar@ut.ac.ir).

Cite: A. Soleimani and M. Saadatfar, "Effective Parameters on Hardness Behavior in Nanoindentation of Nylon66/Clay Nanocomposite Using Representative Volume Element," International Journal of Applied Physics and Mathematics  vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 030-033, 2012.