FRACTAL ANALYSIS OF MECHANICAL PROPERTIES IN FOLDED GRAPHENE AEROGELS

Origami structures have shown significant potential for designing composites with excellent mechanical properties. In our previous work, graphene oxide (GO) sheets were folded through coordination and electrostatic interactions between oxygen atoms and Cu²⁺ to construct highly porous folded graphene aerogels (fGA). However, the influence of pore structure parameters on the mechanical properties of fGA was not fully explored. Therefore, based on fractal theory, the pore structure of fGA was parametrically quantified using the fractal dimension ( D f) in this paper. The mechanical behavior of fGA was analyzed using the mean-field homogenization fractal model (MHFM). The results revealed that the elastic properties of fGA exhibited a nonlinear decrease trend as D f increased. The error between the mechanical properties predicted by the model and the experimental results was less than 4%, and the accuracy of the model was confirmed. The homogeneous pore structure of fGA contributed to its high tensile strength (106.74 KPa). This study provided strong theoretical support for designing and optimizing graphene aerogels with superior mechanical properties. Additionally, based on the analogous mathematical framework, the model has great potential for exploring other important physical properties, such as thermal conductivity and thermal-mechanical coupling.