Experimental and numerical determination of compressive mechanical properties of multi-walled carbon nanotube reinforced polymer

Abstract

Abstract In this paper, experimental and numerical methods were used to determine compressive mechanical properties of multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) reinforced epoxy. Standard samples with varying weight fractions of MWCNTs were prepared and were tested in compression. Nanocomposite modulus of elasticity, yield strength and compressive strength were determined experimentally. Experimental results show that incorporation of CNTs improves yield and compressive strengths of the epoxy resin to a large extent. Also, numerical simulation of nanocomposites was conducted in ABAQUS finite element (FE) software. In these simulations, the effects of the interface strength between individual nanotubes and between the outer nanotube and matrix were also investigated. Two different mechanisms were used to model these interfaces. In one set of the models, connector constraints were used as the interface. In the second set, an interface consisting of thin shells surrounding the nanotubes was used. The results of this investigation suggest that nanocomposite longitudinal modulus increases with increasing interface strength. Also, numerical results suggest that the connector model predicts values lower than the thin shell interphase model. Finally, experimental and numerical results were compared and a good correlation is observed between the results.