  Graphene foams have recently attracted a great deal of interest for their
possible use in technological applications, such as electrochemical storage
devices, wearable electronics, and chemical sensing. In this work, we present
computational investigations, performed by using molecular dynamics with
reactive potentials, of the mechanical and thermal properties of graphene
random nanofoams. In particular, we assess the mechanical and thermal
performances of four families of random foams characterized by increasing mass
density and decreasing average pore size. We find that the foams' mechanical
performances under tension cannot be rationalized in terms of mass density,
while they are principally related to their topology. Under compression,
higher-density foams show the typical slope change in the stress-strain curve
at 5-10% strain, moving from linear elasticity to bending stress plateau. At
variance, lower density foams display a quasi-linear behaviour up to 35%
strain. Furthermore, we assess the thermal conductivity of these random foams
using the Green-Kubo approach. While foam thermal conductivity is affected by
both connectivity and defects, nevertheless we obtain similar values for all
the investigated families.
