On the mechanical properties of functionally graded materials reinforced by carbon nanotubes

Abstract

In this paper, the elastic properties of functionally graded materials reinforced by single-walled carbon nanotubes are studied. Three different matrices, including steel-silicon, iron-alumina and alumina-zirconia are considered. Besides, the effects of nanotube length, radius and volume fraction on the Young’s modulus of functionally graded matrices reinforced by single-walled carbon nanotubes are investigated. It is observed that short nanotubes not only cannot increase the longitudinal elastic modulus of the matrices, but sometimes decrease their elastic modulus. Of the three selected matrices, steel-silicon matrix would have the most enhancement. Investigation of the effect of nanotube volume fraction on the mechanical properties of nanocomposites shows that increasing the volume fraction of long single-walled carbon nanotube results in increasing the elastic modulus of the nanocomposites.

A literature review on Al-Si alloy matrix based in situ Al-Mg2Si FG-composites: Synthesis, microstructure features, and mechanical characteristics

“…55 Recently, carbon nanotube (CNT) based functionally graded materials have been developed from the researchers and offer good elastic properties. Rouhi and Alavi 56 studied the carbon nanotubes (CNTs) reinforced based FG-composites and reported the elastic properties of single-walled carbon nanotubes are decreased with longer nanotubes but elastic modulli increased using shorter nanotubes. There are wide range of scope of FGMs in the field of materials science and engineering.…”

“…Material transport with an external exposure, such as a gravitational or electric field, is used in segregating processes to transform macroscopically homogeneous mixture into graded material. [55][56][57][58] Continuous gradients are formed by homogenizing and segregating processes, although they have limitations in terms of the various components produced. Figure 4 depicts the distinctions between continuous and stepwise graded structures.…”

Impact and mechanical properties of different composite systems modified with multi-walled carbon nanotubes

“…Improving the mechanical properties of FRP composites can be achieved through development new polymers, fibers and improving fiber–matrix interfacial bond strength. Recently, CNTs were used by many researchers 4–8 to improve the mechanical properties of the epoxy materials. However, there is still significant difference between the composite stiffnesses of fabricated nanocomposites and the computed predictions by using the tensile stiffness of individual CNTs, which has been measured by several groups to be ∼1 TPa.…”

“…The high loading of CNTs tends to aggregate to form bundles or ropes, which are very difficult to disperse. 4–6 In the present study, a special attention has been taken to define all the sonication parameters and select the most suitable that can reduce the agglomeration of the CNTs in epoxy matrix.…”

Nonlinear flexural analysis of sandwich beam with multi walled carbon nanotube reinforced composite sheet under thermo-mechanical loading

“…Also, different cases were studied for experimentation and shows different factors influencing metallic beam strength. Rouhi and Alavi [35] used the functionally graded SWCNT composite plate whose material properties were investigated by molecular dynamics simulations. The nonlinear composite plate analysis was carried out under the action of uniformly distributed load assuming temperature-dependent material properties.…”