Influence of Waviness on the Elastic Properties of Aligned Carbon Nanotube Polymer Matrix Nanocomposites
Author(s)
Stein, Itai Y; Wardle, Brian L
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The promise of enhanced performance has motivated the study of one dimensional nanomaterials, especially aligned carbon nanotubes (A-CNTs), for the reinforcement of polymeric materials. While early work has shown that CNTs have remarkable theoretical properties, more recent work on aligned CNT polymer matrix nanocomposites (A-PNCs) have reported mechanical properties that are orders of magnitude lower than those predicted by rule of mixtures. This large difference primarily originates from the morphology of the CNTs that reinforce the A-PNCs, which have significant local curvature commonly referred to as waviness, but are commonly modeled using the oversimplified straight column
geometry. Here we used a simulation framework capable of analyzing 105 wavy CNTs with realistic stochastic morphologies to study the influence of waviness on the compliance contribution of wavy A-CNTs to the effective elastic modulus of A-PNCs, and show that
waviness is responsible for the orders of magnitude over-prediction of the A-PNC effective modulus by existing theoretical frameworks that both neglect the shear deformation mechanism and do not properly account for the CNT morphpology. Additional work to quantify the morphology of A-PNCs in three dimensions and simulate their full elastic constitutive relations is planned.
Date issued
2016-01Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Aeronautics and AstronauticsJournal
Proceedings of the 57th AIAA/ASCE/AHS/ASC Structures, Structural Dynamics, and Materials Conference
Publisher
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Citation
Stein, Itai Y., and Brian L. Wardle. “Influence of Waviness on the Elastic Properties of Aligned Carbon Nanotube Polymer Matrix Nanocomposites.” American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2016.
Version: Author's final manuscript
ISBN
978-1-62410-392-6