Veedu Vinod P, Cao Anyuan, Li Xuesong, Ma Kougen, Soldano Caterina, Kar Swastik, Ajayan Pulickel M, Ghasemi-Nejhad Mehrdad N
Hawaii Nanotechnology Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2540 Dole Street, Holmes Hall 302, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822, USA.
Nat Mater. 2006 Jun;5(6):457-62. doi: 10.1038/nmat1650. Epub 2006 May 7.
Traditional fibre-reinforced composite materials with excellent in-plane properties fare poorly when out-of-plane through-thickness properties are important. Composite architectures with fibres designed orthogonal to the two-dimensional (2D) layout in traditional composites could alleviate this weakness in the transverse direction, but all of the efforts so far have only produced limited success. Here, we unveil an approach to the 3D composite challenge, without altering the 2D stack design, on the basis of the concept of interlaminar carbon-nanotube forests that would provide enhanced multifunctional properties along the thickness direction. The carbon-nanotube forests allow the fastening of adjacent plies in the 3D composite. We grow multiwalled carbon nanotubes on the surface of micro-fibre fabric cloth layouts, normal to the fibre lengths, resulting in a 3D effect between plies under loading. These nanotube-coated fabric cloths serve as building blocks for the multilayered 3D composites, with the nanotube forests providing much-needed interlaminar strength and toughness under various loading conditions. For the fabricated 3D composites with nanotube forests, we demonstrate remarkable improvements in the interlaminar fracture toughness, hardness, delamination resistance, in-plane mechanical properties, damping, thermoelastic behaviour, and thermal and electrical conductivities making these structures truly multifunctional.
具有优异面内性能的传统纤维增强复合材料，在面外厚度方向性能很重要时表现不佳。与传统复合材料中二维（2D）布局正交设计纤维的复合结构，可缓解横向的这一弱点，但迄今为止所有努力仅取得了有限的成功。在此，我们基于层间碳纳米管森林的概念，揭示了一种应对三维复合材料挑战的方法，且不改变二维堆叠设计，该方法能沿厚度方向提供增强的多功能性能。碳纳米管森林使三维复合材料中的相邻层片得以紧固。我们在微纤维织物布布局表面垂直于纤维长度生长多壁碳纳米管，在加载时层间产生三维效果。这些涂覆纳米管的织物布用作多层三维复合材料的构建块，碳纳米管森林在各种加载条件下提供了急需的层间强度和韧性。对于带有纳米管森林的制成的三维复合材料，我们展示了层间断裂韧性、硬度、抗分层性、面内力学性能、阻尼、热弹性行为以及热导率和电导率的显著改善，使这些结构真正具备多功能性。
