Mechanical Characterization of Carbon Nanotubes and Nanocomposites

Abstract

Measurement of all the mechanical properties of carbon nanotubes is extremely difficult because of its small size. In the present work, all the five transverse isotropic properties of single wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) and double wall carbon nanotubes are estimated through molecular structural mechanics for different chirality, length and assumed thickness. Armchair, zigzag & chiral SWCNTs and polychiral DWCNTs are considered for the analysis. Longitudinal and lateral Young’s modulus; longitudinal and lateral Poisson’s ratio and shear modulus are estimated for 1080 SWCNTs and 1170 polychiral DWCNTs. Effect of temperature on all the properties of SWCNT are investigated. Modal characterization of SWCNT is carried out in base fixed condition and different mode shapes viz. axial, torsion and bending mode shapes are identified based on the effective mass. Once the transverse isotropic properties of SWCNTs are estimated, these are used to estimate the transverse isotropic properties of nanocomposites embedded with SWCNT agglomerates. During the manufacturing of nanocomposite, SWCNT agglomerates are formed due to sticking of number of SWCNTs. Parametric studies are carried out to see the effect of SWCNT length on the properties of nanocomposite. Empirical formulae for all the transverse isotropic properties of SWCNT at room temperature and elevated temperature; frequency of SWCNT are derived. Empirical formulae for polychiral DWCNT transverse isotropic properties are estimated. Input for these empirical formulae are the length, chirality and assumed thickness. Empirical formulae were also derived for nanocomposite embedded with different number of SWCNTs having different chirality. The derived empirical formulae were validated with available analytical and experimental results for some sample cases.