Mechanical Property Determination of Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotube Reinforced Polymer: Experimental and Numerical

In this paper, experimental and finite element methods have been used to determine mechanical properties of nanocomposites. Standard tensile and compression samples with 0.0, 0.15, 0.25, 0.35, and 0.45 weight fraction of multi-walled carbon nanotube were prepared and were tested. Nanotube weight fraction was varied in order to investigate the effects of nanotube weight fraction on nanocomposite mechanical properties. Mechanical properties such as: modulus of elasticity, yield strength, ultimate tensile strength and fracture strain were determined experimentally. Also, numerical simulations were conducted in ABAQUS software. In these simulations, the effects of the interface between individual nanotubes and the outer nanotube and matrix are investigated. Two different models are used for these interfaces. Connector constraints are used in the first model and thin shells in the second model. Experimental results show that, incorporation of carbon nanotubes highly improves modulus of elasticity, yield, and ultimate tensile strengths of the epoxy resin. In addition, fracture strain decreases drastically with increasing nanotube weight fraction. Also, the connector’s model predicted lower mechanical properties compared to the thin shell interface model. Finally, experimental and numerical results are compared and a good correlation is observed between the results.