Growth of Carbon Nanotubes on Carbon Fiber Cloth and their Epoxy Composites with enhanced Thermal and Mechanical Properties

摘要

Multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) were grown on carbon fiber (CF) cloth substrates by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) which resulted into strong anchoring of these tubes on the CF surface. These hybrid preforms were used as the reinforcement in epoxy resin matrix to develop hybrid CF-CNT/epoxy composites of size 60mm×20mm×2.5rnrn. The flexural strength (FS) as well as the fiexural modulus (FM) of these hybrid composites was found to increase with increasing amount of carbon nanotubes grown on CF surface. FS of the hybrid composites improved to 550 MPa over the base composite (CF/epoxy) i.e 310 MPa prepared under identical conditions. FM of these composites was also improved by 120% (45 GPa for base composite to 90 GPa for the hybrid composite). Not only this the in-plane thermal conductivity of these hybrid composites improved from 17.68 W/mK(base composite) to 29.05 W/mK whereas the thermal conductivity in the transverse direction improved from 1.79 W/mK(base composite) to 2.61 W/mK making these composites highly attractive for heat dissipation from aircraft structures.