Abstract
This paper studies the effect of inclusion of monolayer graphene sheets at volume fractions of 0.2% to 2% on the mechanical properties of an epoxy resin. A numerical analysis using finite element method (FEM) is conducted to investigate the mechanical properties (Young's modulus and Poisson's ratio) of a nano scale cubic volume element (CVE), which is the binding matrix, combined with 3D shell elements which contain the graphene properties. The results show that the stiffness of the nanocomposite is higher than that of the matrix by 33% to 185%.