Mechanical properties of copper nanocomposites reinforced with uncoated and nickel coated carbon nanotubes

Abstract

Carbon nanotubes have emerged as potential reinforcement material for metallic matrices since their discovery in 1991 by Japanese scientist Sumo Iijima. It is observed that carbon nanotubes were comprised of multifunctional properties and were ideal reinforcement material for metallic matrices. In the present work we report the development of carbon nanotubes with multi-walls reinforced commercial purity copper nanocomposites. The carbon nanotubes content was varied from 0.25 to 1.0 wt% in the copper matrix nanocomposites. Here, carbon nanotubes were also nickel coated for improving the interfacial bonding with the copper matrix. In order to obtain the good dispersion of carbon nanotubes in the copper matrix, both materials were subjected to ultrasonication and blending process using ball milling. Further sintered nanocomposites were subjected to upsetting forging process, which involves densification and shape change simultaneously. Microstructure studies were conducted using scanning and transmission electron microscopes to study the dispersion of carbon nanotubes. The effect of carbon nanotubes on the mechanical properties like microhardness and tensile strength of copper matrix nanocomposites is studied in detail.

A Review on Nanocomposites. Part 1: Mechanical Properties

“…In general, some main improvements in terms of tensile properties and hardness when reinforcing metals by CNTs are shown in Table 4. The effectiveness of the improvement of mechanical properties of metals reinforced CNTs depends on the homogenous distribution of CNTs [132,[136][137][138][139], interfacial strength of metal/CNT [132,133,139,140], thermal expansion mismatch between metal and CNTs [141], grain refinement effect [133,142], CNTs structure retention of plastic deformations of metal matrixes [132,139,140,143], that all contributed to strengthening mechanism. The two last ones also contribute to the hardness improvement of metal/CNT nanocomposites.…”

Prediction of Temperature-Dependent Mechanical Properties for SWCNT/Cu Nanocomposite Metamaterials: A Molecular Dynamics Study

“…According to the density formula of nanocomposites (Equation (8)), the relationship between vol.% and wt.% of CNTs can be derived as: where ρ CNT and ρ Cu stand for the density of CNTs and Cu in nanocomposites. Generally, ρ CNT takes a value of 1.8–2.1 g/cm 3 and ρ Cu is chosen as 8.9–8.96 g/cm 3 [ 14 , 49 ].…”

Influence of Multiwall Carbon Nanotube on mechanical and wear properties of Copper – Iron composite

“…Observably, the hybrid composites showed decreased experimental density with an increasing amount of CNTs when compared to that of theoretical density. This decline of density was due to the lower value of the density of CNTs in comparison with powders of copper and iron in addition to the increased percentage of porosity and agglomeration of CNTs as the nano-powder content increases as shown in the SEM micrographs ( Figure 2) [20]. The porosity was increased when the concentration of was CNT increased due to the agglomeration of the nano-filler.…”

“…Therefore, the mixing process must be done well to ensure homogeneous distribution of particles [19]. Koti et al [20] used powder metallurgy techniques to prepare Cu-CNT composites and found an increase in the microhardness with increasing CNT content up to 0.75 wt.%. Mallikarjuna et al [21] studied the mechanical properties of CNT-SiC/Cu hybrid nanocomposite fabricated by powder metallurgy techniques.…”