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Tensile Mechanical Behaviors of High Loading of Carbon Nanotube/Epoxy Composites via Experimental and Finite Element Analysis
Author(s) -
Shen Lulu,
Liu Ling,
Wu Zhanjun
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
advanced engineering materials
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.938
H-Index - 114
eISSN - 1527-2648
pISSN - 1438-1656
DOI - 10.1002/adem.201900895
Subject(s) - materials science , composite material , ultimate tensile strength , carbon nanotube , epoxy , composite number , modulus , finite element method , stress (linguistics) , young's modulus , deformation (meteorology) , compressive strength , structural engineering , linguistics , philosophy , engineering
This article aims to explore the tensile behaviors of a randomly distributed carbon nanotube (CNT) reinforced epoxy (EP) composite with high CNT loading by experimental and finite element analysis (FEA). The CNT/EP with CNT loading of 22–25 wt% is prepared by resin‐film infusion process. The obtained tensile strength and modulus of the as‐prepared CNT/EP are increased by 141.7% and 175.3%, respectively, compared with the blank EP. When the CNT/EP prepreg (uncured) is prestretched with a tensile deformation of 2.5% to improve the alignment of CNTs, the yielded tensile strength and modulus of the cured composite are further improved by 6.3% and 10.8%. FEA result reveals that CNTs are the main stress carriers, and the maximum stress level undertaken by CNTs is 23‐fold that of EP matrix. Also, the carrying capacity of CNTs is closely correlative to their alignments, when the orientation angle between CNTs' axes and loading direction is changed from 0° to 61°, CNTs bear continuously decreasing tensile stress; otherwise (61° to 90°), CNTs undertake increasing compressive stress. Moreover, CNTs affect their nearby stress fields within EP in a distance of 50–60 nm, which proves that stress can be effectively transferred from EP matrix to CNTs.