Processing, Structure and Properties of Carbon Nanotube-Based Polymer Composites

摘要

Carbon nanotubes have been shown to exhibit exceptional mechanical, thermal, and electricalproperties. Researchers have reported elastic properties for nanotubes that exceed 1 TPa (1000MPa) and strengths that are many times higher than the strongest steel at a fraction of the weight.These properties observed at the nanoscale, combined with the fiber-like nature of the nanotube, givemotivation to the development of nanotube-based composite materials. Toward a fundamentalunderstanding of the nanoscale reinforcement mechanisms, this research focuses on development oftechniques to process model nanotube-based composites with controlled structure (dispersion,alignment, aspect ratio) and characterization of structure and mechanical properties.Polystyrene/multi-walled nanotube composites were processed with varying nanotube content andcontrolled alignment using a micro-scale extrusion technique, and the tensile properties of thenanocomposites were characterized using a dynamic mechanical analyzer.