Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) were discovered by Iijima in 1991 as the fourth form of carbon. Carbon nanotubes are the ultimate carbon fibres because of their high Young's modulus of ≈ 1 TPa which is very useful for load transfer in nanocomposites. In the present work, CNT/Al nanocomposites were fabricated by the powder metallurgy technique and after extrusion of the nanocomposites bright field transmission electron microscopic (TEM) studies were carried out. From the TEM images so obtained, a novel method of ascertaining the Young's modulus of multi-walled carbon nanotubes is worked out in the present paper which turns out to be 0⋅9 TPa which is consistent with the experimental results.

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Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) were discovered by Iijima in 1991 as the fourth form of carbon. Carbon nanotubes are the ultimate form of the carbon fibre because of its high Young's modulus in the order of 1 TPa, which is very useful for load transfer in nanocomposites. In the present work, CNT/Cu nanocomposites were fabricated by the powder metallurgy technique, and after extrusion of the nanocomposites, bright field transmission electron microscopic studies were carried out. From the transmission electron microscopic images obtained, a novel method of ascertaining the Young's modulus of multiwalled CNTs is worked out in the present paper, which turns out to be 0·94 TPa, which is consistent with experimental results. Furthermore, an attempt is made to investigate the microhardness of copper by reinforcing it with multiwalled CNTs. There is an increase in hardness by twofold in CNT/Cu nanocomposites as compared to pure Cu matrix. This is due to high relative density, even distribution of CNTs and proper bonding at CNT/Cu interfaces.