Scaling between elasticity and topological genus for random network nanomaterials

Abstract

We explore the hypothesis that the variation of the effective, macroscopic Young’s modulus, Eeff, of a random network material with its scaled topological genus, g, and with the solid fraction, φ, can be decomposed into the product of g- and φ-dependent functions. Based on findings for nanoporous gold, supplemented by the Gibson–Ashby scaling law for Eeff, we argue that both functions are quadratic in bending-dominated structures. We present finite-element-modeling results for Eeff of coarsened microstructures, in which g and φ are decoupled. These results support the quadratic forms.