Aligned carbon nanotube sheets provide an engineered scaffold for the deposition of a silicon active material for lithium ion battery anodes. The sheets are low-density, allowing uniform deposition of silicon thin films while the alignment allows unconstrained volumetric expansion of the silicon, facilitating stable cycling performance. The flat sheet morphology is desirable for battery construction.
This investigation describes the design, fabrication, and testing of woven glass fiber reinforced epoxy matrix laminates with aligned CNT sheets integrated between plies in order to improve the matrix dominated through thickness properties such as the interlaminar fracture toughness at ply interfaces. Using aligned CNT sheets allows for a concentration of millimeter long CNTs at the most likely point of laminate failure. Mode I and Mode II interlaminar fracture toughness of various CNT modified samples were investigated using double cantilever beam (DCB) and end notched flexure (ENF) experiments, respectively. Short beam strength (SBS) and in-plane tensile properties of the CNT modified samples were also investigated. Moderate improvement was observed in Mode I and Mode II fracture toughness at crack initiation when aligned CNT sheets with a basis weight of 0.354 g/m 2 were used to modify the ply interface. No compromise in the in-plane mechanical properties of the laminate was observed and very little improvement was observed in the shear related short beam strength of the CNT modified laminates as compared to the control samples. Integration of aligned CNT sheets into the composite laminate imparted in-plane and through thickness electrical properties into the nonconductive glass fiber reinforced epoxy composite laminates.
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