Deformation characteristics of solid-state benzene as a step towards understanding planetary geology
Small organic molecules, like ethane and benzene, are ubiquitous in the atmosphere and surface of Saturn's largest moon Titan, forming plains, dunes, canyons, and other surface features. Understanding Titan's dynamic geology and designing future landing missions requires sufficient knowled...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Journal Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2023
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10356/169747 |
| _version_ | 1826111168381452288 |
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| author | Zhang, Wenxin Zhang, Xuan Edwards, Bryce W. Zhong, Lei Gao, Huajian Malaska, Michael J. Hodyss, Robert Greer, Julia R. |
| author2 | School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering |
| author_facet | School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Zhang, Wenxin Zhang, Xuan Edwards, Bryce W. Zhong, Lei Gao, Huajian Malaska, Michael J. Hodyss, Robert Greer, Julia R. |
| author_sort | Zhang, Wenxin |
| collection | NTU |
| description | Small organic molecules, like ethane and benzene, are ubiquitous in the atmosphere and surface of Saturn's largest moon Titan, forming plains, dunes, canyons, and other surface features. Understanding Titan's dynamic geology and designing future landing missions requires sufficient knowledge of the mechanical characteristics of these solid-state organic minerals, which is currently lacking. To understand the deformation and mechanical properties of a representative solid organic material at space-relevant temperatures, we freeze liquid micro-droplets of benzene to form ~10 μm-tall single-crystalline pyramids and uniaxially compress them in situ. These micromechanical experiments reveal contact pressures decaying from ~2 to ~0.5 GPa after ~1 μm-reduction in pyramid height. The deformation occurs via a series of stochastic (~5-30 nm) displacement bursts, corresponding to densification and stiffening of the compressed material during cyclic loading to progressively higher loads. Molecular dynamics simulations reveal predominantly plastic deformation and densified region formation by the re-orientation and interplanar shear of benzene rings, providing a two-step stiffening mechanism. This work demonstrates the feasibility of in-situ cryogenic nanomechanical characterization of solid organics as a pathway to gain insights into the geophysics of planetary bodies. |
| first_indexed | 2024-10-01T02:46:33Z |
| format | Journal Article |
| id | ntu-10356/169747 |
| institution | Nanyang Technological University |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-10-01T02:46:33Z |
| publishDate | 2023 |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | ntu-10356/1697472023-08-05T16:48:23Z Deformation characteristics of solid-state benzene as a step towards understanding planetary geology Zhang, Wenxin Zhang, Xuan Edwards, Bryce W. Zhong, Lei Gao, Huajian Malaska, Michael J. Hodyss, Robert Greer, Julia R. School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Institute of High Performance Computing, A*STAR Engineering::Mechanical engineering Benzene Molecular Mechanics Small organic molecules, like ethane and benzene, are ubiquitous in the atmosphere and surface of Saturn's largest moon Titan, forming plains, dunes, canyons, and other surface features. Understanding Titan's dynamic geology and designing future landing missions requires sufficient knowledge of the mechanical characteristics of these solid-state organic minerals, which is currently lacking. To understand the deformation and mechanical properties of a representative solid organic material at space-relevant temperatures, we freeze liquid micro-droplets of benzene to form ~10 μm-tall single-crystalline pyramids and uniaxially compress them in situ. These micromechanical experiments reveal contact pressures decaying from ~2 to ~0.5 GPa after ~1 μm-reduction in pyramid height. The deformation occurs via a series of stochastic (~5-30 nm) displacement bursts, corresponding to densification and stiffening of the compressed material during cyclic loading to progressively higher loads. Molecular dynamics simulations reveal predominantly plastic deformation and densified region formation by the re-orientation and interplanar shear of benzene rings, providing a two-step stiffening mechanism. This work demonstrates the feasibility of in-situ cryogenic nanomechanical characterization of solid organics as a pathway to gain insights into the geophysics of planetary bodies. Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) Nanyang Technological University Published version J.R.G. and R.H. gratefully acknowledge the financial support of JPL’s Research and Technology Development program, as well as the critical infrastructure of the Kavli Nanoscience Institute at Caltech. X.Z. acknowledges the Humboldt Research Fellowship for Postdocs. H.G. acknowledges a research start-up grant (002479-00001, H.G.) from Nanyang Technological University and the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR). R.H. acknowledges the support of the JPL Researches on Campus program. Parts of this research were carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (80NM0018D0004, R.H.). 2023-08-01T08:23:01Z 2023-08-01T08:23:01Z 2022 Journal Article Zhang, W., Zhang, X., Edwards, B. W., Zhong, L., Gao, H., Malaska, M. J., Hodyss, R. & Greer, J. R. (2022). Deformation characteristics of solid-state benzene as a step towards understanding planetary geology. Nature Communications, 13(1), 7949-. https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-35647-x 2041-1723 https://hdl.handle.net/10356/169747 10.1038/s41467-022-35647-x 36572686 2-s2.0-85144810388 1 13 7949 en NTU-SUG (002479-00001) Nature Communications © The Author(s) 2022. Open Access. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/. application/pdf |
| spellingShingle | Engineering::Mechanical engineering Benzene Molecular Mechanics Zhang, Wenxin Zhang, Xuan Edwards, Bryce W. Zhong, Lei Gao, Huajian Malaska, Michael J. Hodyss, Robert Greer, Julia R. Deformation characteristics of solid-state benzene as a step towards understanding planetary geology |
| title | Deformation characteristics of solid-state benzene as a step towards understanding planetary geology |
| title_full | Deformation characteristics of solid-state benzene as a step towards understanding planetary geology |
| title_fullStr | Deformation characteristics of solid-state benzene as a step towards understanding planetary geology |
| title_full_unstemmed | Deformation characteristics of solid-state benzene as a step towards understanding planetary geology |
| title_short | Deformation characteristics of solid-state benzene as a step towards understanding planetary geology |
| title_sort | deformation characteristics of solid state benzene as a step towards understanding planetary geology |
| topic | Engineering::Mechanical engineering Benzene Molecular Mechanics |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/10356/169747 |
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