Manufacture of a Nanocomposite of Carbon Fibre and Nanotubes and Epoxy Resin

Abstract

Nanocomposite material have been manufactured by the manual contact method, using nanotubes and carbon fibres as the basis for manufacturing the nanocomposite and epoxy resin as the matrix. The CVD method was used to manufacture the carbon nanotubes on the carbon fibre with twill and plain weaves. Additionally, the mechanical properties of the nanocomposite with twill and plain weave were obtained from the tensile tests, and the density was obtained experimentally. The carbon nanotubes, CNTs, grew perpendicular to the surface of the carbon fibres, CF. The average diameter was 117 μm and the average length was 23.87 μm. The nanocomposite made of carbon nanotubes, carbon fibre and epoxy resin, CNT/CF/Epoxy with single layer twill weave had a thickness of 0.57 mm, while the plain weave nanocomposite had 0.56 mm. The densities obtained of the CNT/CF/Epoxy material were 1.03 g/cm3 with the plain weave and 1.08 g/cm3 with the twill weave. While the densities of the composite material, CF/Epoxy, where 1.21 g/cm3 and 1.19 g/cm3 with plain and twill weave. The densities of the CNT/CF/Epoxy were 14.28% and 9.14% lower than the densities of the CF/Epoxy, both with the plain and twill weave. From the tensile tests the mechanical properties obtained of the CNT/CF/Epoxy with twill weave were a modulus of elasticity of 31 GPa and a maximum stress of 153.47 MPa and with the plain weave the modulus of elasticity was 25.10 GPa and the maximum stress was 121.71 MPa. Both composite and nanocomposite materials were investigated with twill weave, and it was found that the best results of the mechanical properties were obtained with the nanocomposite, the increase of the modulus of elasticity and the maximum stress were 23.82% and 2.16% respectively.