Graph Neural Networks for Molecular Scale Property Prediction and Inverse Design of Thermoset Polymer Nanocomposites: A Computational Framework

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Year : 2026 | Volume : 14 | 04 | Page :
By

Manish Kumar Jha,

  1. Ph.D. Scholar, Department of Computer Science Patliputra University, Patna, Bihar, India

Abstract

Thermoset polymer nanocomposites exhibit properties that are highly sensitive to molecular scale formulation decisions, yet the vast design space remains largely unexplored because of the high cost of experimental characterisation and fully atomistic simulation. This paper presents TNC GNN, a dual mode graph neural network framework developed for the computational design of thermoset nanocomposite formulations. The forward module employs an attention augmented Message Passing Neural Network with 3D geometric encoding to predict five thermos mechanical properties: glass transition temperature (Tg), tensile modulus, fracture toughness, thermal conductivity, and coefficient of thermal expansion. The inverse design module couples the trained predictor with a conditional variational auto encoder to generate candidate molecular structures that satisfy user specified property targets. Trained on a curated set of 4,076 thermoset formulations (approximately 48% containing nano particle fillers), the model achieves a Tg mean absolute error of 4.2K and recovers 76.4% of held out target profiles within 10% relative error. Ablation studies show that 3D geometric encoding reduces Tg MAE by 42.5% relative to a 2D topology only baseline (from 7.3K to 4.2K). Forward inference requires less than 12 ms per formulation, making high throughput computational screening feasible. The work is presented strictly as a methodological and computational contribution at a simulation and literature grounded conceptual stage. No experimental synthesis or characterisation of any proposed candidate has been performed; experimental validation remains an essential next step.

Keywords: machine learning; graph neural networks; polymer nanocomposites; inverse design; computational materials science; thermal and mechanical properties

How to cite this article: Manish Kumar Jha. Graph Neural Networks for Molecular Scale Property Prediction and Inverse Design of Thermoset Polymer Nanocomposites: A Computational Framework. Journal of Polymer & Composites. 2026; 14(04):-.
How to cite this URL: Manish Kumar Jha. Graph Neural Networks for Molecular Scale Property Prediction and Inverse Design of Thermoset Polymer Nanocomposites: A Computational Framework. Journal of Polymer & Composites. 2026; 14(04):-. Available from: https://journals.stmjournals.com/jopc/article=2026/view=255686

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Ahead of Print Subscription Review Article
Volume 14
04
Received 12/06/2026
Accepted 12/09/2026
Published 15/09/2026
Publication Time 95 Days


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