Characterization of composites with aligned carbon nanotubes (CNTs) as reinforcement

Carbon nanotubes' (CNTs) superlative combination of electrical, thermal, and especially mechanical properties make them ideal candidates for composite reinforcement. Nanocomposites and hybrid composite architectures employing traditional advanced composites and CNTs offer significant potential mechanical and multifunctional performance benefits. CNT/polymer composites and two different hybrid architectures are experimentally investigated in this work. A novel process for rapidly growing dense, long, high-quality aligned CNT forests is employed. The first architecture is comprised of aligned fibers with CNTs grown radially on their surface. For the second architecture, dense forests of vertically aligned CNTs are placed between the plies of a laminate, in the through-thickness direction. Fundamental issues related to realizing hybrid composite architectures are investigated experimentally: wetting of the CNTs by commercially available polymers for the different architectures, effective reinforcement of the polymer matrices due to the addition of CNTs, and retention of mechanical (stiffness and strength) properties of the fibers after the CNT growth process.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• García, Enrique J

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Brian A. Wardle.

• Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/35578
• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Identifier URI

http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/35578

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/35578