Active Nanocomposites: Energy Harvesting and Stress Generation Media for Future Multifunctional Aerospace Structures

摘要

The program successfully demonstrated experimental evidence of the creation of an electrostrictive response in amorphous polymer nanocomposites by addition of small quantities of nanoparticles. Further, it has been also verified that their piezoelectric response can be dramatically enhanced through addition of conductive nanoparticles, such as carbon nanotubes without additional weight penalties. Most importantly, these improvements were achieved at much lower actuation voltages, and were accompanied by increase in both mechanical and dielectric properties. The efforts reported provide new avenues to significantly improve the electromechanical response of EAP-based nanocomposites.