Chirality and grain boundary effects on indentation mechanical properties of graphene coated on nickel foil.

We investigate chirality and grain boundary (GB) effects on indentation mechanical properties of graphene coated on nickel foil using molecular dynamics simulations. The models of graphene with different chirality angles, different numbers of layers and tilt GBs were established. It was found that the chirality angle of few-layer graphene had a significant effect on the load bearing capacity of graphene/nickel systems, and this turns out to be more significant when the number of layers is greater than one. The enhancement to the contact stiffness, elastic capacity and the load bearing capacity of graphene with tilt GBs was lower than that of pristine graphene.