SCALABLE HIGH TENSILE MODULUS COMPOSITE LAMINATES USING CONTINUOUS CARBON NANOTUBE YARNS AND GAMMA RAY TREATMENT

Abstract

Continuous carbon nanotube (CNT) yarns are used to fabricate scalable composite laminates with high strength and stiffness for scaled-up manufacturing and potential engineering applications. CNT yarns are shown with specific tensile strengths of 1.77 N/tex due to a high degree of nanotube alignment. These properties are transferred to scalable unidirectional CNT yarn reinforced composite laminates fabricated using filament winding and aerospace resin matrices. Gamma ray treatments of 200 kGy, 700 kGy, and 1200 kGy are used to further improve the mechanical and interface properties of the constituent CNT yarns. The optimal dose is 700 kGy, yielding a specific tensile strength of 1.89 GPa/(g cm-3) and specific modulus of 258 GPa/(g cm-3), which represents a 37% and 44% improvement over the properties of the control laminate. The specific modulus exceeds current state-of-the-art unidirectional carbon fiber composite laminates. The results demonstrate an effective approach transferring high-strength CNT yarns into composites that retain the tensile performance of CNT materials at the flight article scale.