Mechanical improvement of boron nitride nanosheet-reinforced cement paste by multiscale modeling

Representative volume (RVE) models are constructed to mimic the microstructural characteristics of boron nitride nanosheet (BNNS)-reinforced cement paste. The interfacial properties between BNNSs and cement paste are described by the cohesive zone model (CZM) developed by molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. Based on the RVE models and the MD-based CZM, the mechanical properties of the macroscale cement paste are obtained by finite element analysis (FEA). To validate the accuracy of the MD-based CZM, the tensile strength and compressive strength of BNNS-reinforced cement paste from the FEA are compared with those from measurements. The FEA shows that the compressive strength of BNNS-reinforced cement paste is close to that of the measurements. The discrepancy of the tensile strength of BNNS-reinforced cement paste between the FEA and the measurements is distributed to the load transfer at the BNNS-tobermorite interface through the inclined BNNSs.