Dynamic penetration behaviors of graphene origami under high-velocity impact

Abstract

Brittleness remains the key bottleneck for graphene to be used as impact protection materials and this obstacle can be overcome by origami-modified graphene. Herein we employed molecular dynamics simulation to investigate the perforation behaviours of graphene origami (GOri) under ballistic impact from a diamond projectile. We found that the threshold penetration velocity of GOri can be improved significantly by 46.27 % compared with that of its pristine counterpart. Under a small ballistic impact loading at a low speed, GOri experiences a unique unfolding process and hence has improved impact-resistance performance. Depending on the initial velocity of the projectile, three different penetration phenomena are observed, i.e. bounce-back, capture, and perforation state. The penetration energy depends on the roughness of GOri, the initial impact velocity, the projectile's radius and the layer number. This study provides useful insights into the perforation behaviours and energy absorption of GOri and offers useful guidelines for graphene applications as impact protection materials.