Effective Young's modulus of carbon nanotube/epoxy composites

  • N. V. Viet
  • , Q. Wang
  • , W. S. Kuo

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

35 Scopus citations

Abstract

A formulation based on shear-lag model and global force equilibrium is proposed to identify the effective Young's modulus of single and multi-walled carbon nanotube (CNT)/epoxy composites. The effective Young's modulus from the model is validated by available experimental results and good agreements are identified. The results show that an increase in CNT length, CNT layer number, interspace shear modulus between adjacent CNT layers and CNT volume percentage leads to an increase in the effective Young's modulus. It is found that the effective Young's modulus of a ten-walled CNT/epoxy composite is as high as 152 GPa with the CNT half-length of and CNT volume percentage being 8200 nm and 14.5%, respectively. It also reveals that although a single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) composites have a superior load transfer, the SWCNTs demonstrate a weaker reinforcing capability than its counterparts, multi-walled CNTs.

Original languageBritish English
Pages (from-to)160-166
Number of pages7
JournalComposites Part B: Engineering
Volume94
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Jun 2016

Keywords

  • A. Composites
  • A. Nano-structures
  • B. Mechanical properties

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Effective Young's modulus of carbon nanotube/epoxy composites'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this