Elastic models for graphene sheets and membrane materials

在过去的十年里，包括原子厚度的石墨烯片、生物膜和软电子膜在内的小尺度膜材料的科学技术取得了令人兴奋的进展。这一进展刺激了对原子厚度单层和纳米级膜材料力学研究的复苏。虽然传统的固体力学模型（如弹性板模型或膜模型）已被广泛应用于研究小尺度膜材料的力学问题，但它们不能捕捉到一些与小尺度力和微观结构新特征相关的单层或纳米级膜的复杂力学现象。这给固体力学界提出了一个重大挑战。单分子层或纳米级膜材料的力学行为具有以下几个新特点：1)单分子层（如石墨烯片）的弯曲刚度极低；2)材料不同部分之间的自吸引分子间或表面力；3)多层结构，如多层石墨烯片或生物膜。受申请人最近在单层石墨烯片和碳纳米管，生物膜壳（病毒，微管）以及表面和分子间力方面的工作的启发，本提案旨在开发纳米/微观尺度上原子厚石墨烯片和膜材料力学行为的新弹性模型，并有助于培养加拿大新一代小型机械工程工程师。并在不久的将来满足加拿大的预期需求。

The past decade has seen exciting progress of science and technology in small scale membrane materials including atom-thick graphene sheets, biomembranes, and soft electronic membranes. The progress has stimulated a resurge of research on mechanics of atom-thick monolayers and nanoscale membrane materials. Although traditional solid mechanics models (such as elastic plate or membrane models) have been widely applied to study mechanical problems of small-scale membrane materials, they cannot capture some complex mechanics phenomena of monolayers or nanoscale membranes associated with new features of forces and microstructures at small scales. This has raised a major challenge to the solid mechanics community. Mechanical behaviors of monolayers or nanoscale membrane materials are characterized particularly by a few new features : 1) extremely low bending rigidity of monolayers such as graphene sheets; 2) self-attractive intermolecular or surface forces between different parts of the material; 3) multilayer structure such as multilayer graphene sheets or biomembranes. Inspired by the applicant’s recent work on singlelayer graphene sheets and carbon nanotubes, biomembrane shells (viruses, microtubules) and surface and intermolecular forces, the present proposal aims to develop new elastic models for mechanical behavior of atom-thick graphene sheets and membrane materials at the nano/micro scales, and contribute to the training of a new generation of engineers of Canada in small-scale mechanical engineering, and to meet the anticipated needs of Canada in the near future.