Grafting straight carbon nanotubes radially onto carbon fibers and their effect on the mechanical properties of carbon/carbon composites

Straight carbon nanotubes (CNTs) were grafted radially onto carbon fibers to produce hybrid materials that were used to reinforce carbon/carbon (C/C) composites. Mechanical property tests indicated that these C/C composites have improvements in out-of-plane and in-plane compressive strengths and interlaminar shear strength of 275%, 138% and 206%, respectively. They also have a large decrease in the anisotropy of mechanical properties, compared with pure C/C composites. This great improvement is the result of the simultaneous reinforcements to the fiber/matrix interface and the matrix provided by the grafted CNTs.