Umer Usama, Abidi Mustufa Haider, Almutairi Zeyad, Aboudaif Mohamed K
Advanced Manufacturing Institute, King Saud University, P.O. Box 800, Riyadh 11421, Saudi Arabia.
Mechanical Engineering Department, College of Engineering, King Saud University, P.O. Box 800, Riyadh 11421, Saudi Arabia.
Polymers (Basel). 2025 Jan 7;17(2):128. doi: 10.3390/polym17020128.
Multifunctional polymer composites containing micro/nano hybrid reinforcements have attracted intensive attention in the field of materials science and engineering. This paper develops a multi-phase analytical model for investigating the effective electrical conductivity of micro-silicon carbide (SiC) whisker/nano-carbon black (CB) polymer composites. First, CB nanoparticles are dispersed within the non-conducting epoxy to achieve a conductive CB-filled nanocomposite and its electrical conductivity is predicted. Some critical microstructures such as volume percentage and size of nanoparticles, and interphase characteristics surrounding the CB are micromechanically captured. Next, the electrical conductivity of randomly oriented SiC-containing composites in which the nanocomposite and whisker are considered as the matrix and reinforcement phases, respectively, is estimated. Influences of whisker aspect ratio and volume fraction on the effective electrical conductivity of the SiC/CB-containing polymer composites are explored. Some comparison studies are performed to validate the accuracy of the model. It is observed before the percolation threshold that the addition of nanoparticles with a uniform dispersion can improve the electrical conductivity of the polymer composites containing SiC/CB hybrids. Moreover, the results show that the electrical conductivity is more enhanced by the decrease in nanoparticle size. Interestingly, the composite percolation threshold is significantly reduced when SiC whiskers with a higher aspect ratio are added. This work will be favorable for the design of electro-conductive polymer composites with high performances.
包含微/纳米混合增强体的多功能聚合物复合材料在材料科学与工程领域引起了广泛关注。本文建立了一个多相分析模型，用于研究微碳化硅（SiC）晶须/纳米炭黑（CB）聚合物复合材料的有效电导率。首先，将CB纳米粒子分散在非导电环氧树脂中，以制备导电的CB填充纳米复合材料，并预测其电导率。通过微观力学方法捕捉了一些关键的微观结构，如纳米粒子的体积百分比和尺寸，以及围绕CB的界面特性。接下来，估计了分别将纳米复合材料和晶须视为基体相和增强相的含随机取向SiC的复合材料的电导率。探讨了晶须长径比和体积分数对含SiC/CB聚合物复合材料有效电导率的影响。进行了一些对比研究以验证模型的准确性。观察到在渗流阈值之前，添加均匀分散的纳米粒子可以提高含SiC/CB杂化体的聚合物复合材料的电导率。此外，结果表明，纳米粒子尺寸的减小对电导率的提高更为显著。有趣的是，添加高长径比的SiC晶须时，复合材料的渗流阈值显著降低。这项工作将有助于高性能导电聚合物复合材料的设计。
