Dielectric Analysis of Single Walled Carbon Nanotubes Loaded SMC Composites Depending on Resin Type

Abstract

This paper investigates effect of different industrial resins including vinyl ester and unsaturated polyester produced by sheet moulding compound (SMC) method on conductivity and dielectric properties of single walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT) modified glass fiber reinforced polymer composites (GFRP), comparatively. Alternating current (AC) conductivities, complex dielectric permittivity, dissipation factor (DF), electric modulus of unsaturated polyester and vinyl ester resin-based composites was examined by impedance analyzer depending on frequency range from 10-2 Hz to 107 Hz at room temperature. Cole–Cole approach was used to describe the impedance characteristics of tested samples. In order to clearly understand the effect of resin type, the glass fiber and carbon nanotube filling ratios in the produced materials were kept constant. AC conductivity results showed that VE composite exhibited better performance than UP composite in all frequency. The theoretical models including Power Law and Linear Regression (LR) algorithm also confirmed the experimental results about the conductivity of the composites. A comparison of the dielectric characteristics between SWCNT/VE and SWCNT/UP binary composites indicated that VE based composite exhibited superior dielectric properties compared to the UP based sample. In addition, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images have been taken to observe distribution and organization of fillers in polymer composites.