Dynamic Characteristics of Epoxy- Polysulfide/ CNTs Composite Materials

The rapid and continuous growth in aerospace, automotive, and military applications require special materials. These materials must have high performance characteristics to build structures that can achieve and exceed target properties. One of the important material characteristics needed for some of these applications is the ability to absorb vibrations. One of the materials that showed promise in this aspect is Nano composite. In a Nano composite structure, it is anticipated that high damping can be achieved by taking advantage of the interfacial friction between the nanotubes and the polymer. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the structural damping characteristics of polymeric blend composites containing Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) with various amounts of polysulfide rubber (PS). The damping characteristics of the specimens with 0 wt% and 0.6 wt% nanotube contents were studied experimentally. Through comparing with neat resin specimens (Epoxy, Epoxy +PS), the study showed that one can enhance damping by adding CNTs fillers into polymeric resins. Similarly experiment showed that the maximum value of damping ratio was obtained at 0.4 wt%.