Abstract
The influence of a cohesive zone model on the effective plastic strain and stress concentration factor of carbon nano-tube composites with debonding interfaces was investigated in this paper. The finite element process was carried out by ANSYS with the cohesive zone model. Three parameters derived from a surface potential functionwere applied to represent the interface separation and traction in the cohesive zone model, and the effective plastic strain and stress concentration factors were calculated for the models with and without a cohesive zone model. The results showed that the effective plastic strain increased and the stress concentration factor decreased with the application of the cohesive zone model, and it was able to improve the mechanical properties of the carbon nano-tube composites with debonding interfaces by applying the cohesive zone model.