• Proceedings of the Korean Society For Composite Materials Conference
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.25-28
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• 2003

Carbon nanotubes(CNTs), since their first discovery, have been considered as new promising materials in various fields of applications including field emission displays, memory devices, electrodes, NEMS constituents, hydrogen storages and reinforcements in composites due to their extra-ordinary properties. The carbon nanotube reinforced nanocomposites have attracted attention owing to their outstanding mechanical and electrical properties and are expected to overcome the limit of conventional materials. Various application areas are possible for carbon nanotube reinforced nanocomposites through the functionalization of carbon nanotubes. Carbon nanotube reinforced polymer matrix nanocomposites have been fabricated by liquid phase process including surface functionalization and dispersion of CNTs within organic solvent. In case of carbon nanotube reinforced polymer matrix nanocomposites, the mechanical strength and electrical conducting can be improved by more than an order of magnitude. The carbon nanotube reinforced polymer matrix nanocomposites can be applied to high strength polymers, conductive polymers, optical limiters and EMI materials. In spite of successful development of carbon nanotube reinforced polymer matrix nanocomposites, the researches on carbon nanotube reinforced inorganic matrix nanocomposites show limitations due to a difficulty in homogeneous distribution of carbon nanotubes within inorganic matrix. Therefore, the enhancement of carbon nanotube reinforced inorganic nanocomposites is under investigation to maximize the excellent properties of carbon nanotubes. To overcome the current limitations, novel processes, including intensive milling process, sol-gel process, in-situ process and spark plasma sintering of nanocomposite powders are being investigated. In this presentation, current research status on carbon nanotube reinforced nanocomposites with various matrices are reviewed.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.57-66
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• 2017

Nanocomposites reinforced with carbon nanotube fibers exhibit greater stiffness, strength and damping properties in comparison to conventional composites reinforced with carbon/glass fibers. Consequently, most of the nanocomposite research is focused in understanding the dynamic characteristics, which are highly useful in applications such as vibration control and energy harvesting. It has been observed that those nanocomposites show better stiffness when the geometry of nanotubes is straight as compared to curvilinear although nanotube agglomeration may exist. In this work the damping behavior of the nanocomposite is characterized in terms of loss factor under the presence of nanotube agglomerations. A micro stick-slip damping model is used to compute the damping properties of the nanocomposites with multiwall carbon nanotubes. The present formulation considers the slippage between the interface of the matrix and the nanotubes as well as the slippage between the interlayers in the nanotubes. The nanotube agglomerations model is also presented. Results are computed based on the loss factor expressed in terms of strain amplitude and nanotube agglomerations. The results show that although-among the various factors such as the material properties (moduli of nanotubes and polymer matrix) and the geometric properties (number of nanotubes, volume fraction of nanotubes, and critical interfacial shear stresses), the agglomeration of nanotubes significantly influences the damping properties of the nanocomposites. Therefore the full potential of nanocomposites to be used for damping applications needs to be analyzed under the influence of nanotube agglomerations.

• Carbon letters
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.325-331
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• 2010

This study investigates the effect of filler content (wt%), presence of interphase and agglomerates on the effective Young's modulus of polypropylene (PP) based nanocomposites reinforced with exfoliated graphite nanoplatelets ($xGnP^{TM}$) and carbon nanotubes (CNTs). The Young's modulus of the composites is determined using tensile testing based on ASTM D638. The reinforcement/polymer interphase is characterized in terms of width and mechanical properties using atomic force microscopy which is also used to investigate the presence and size of agglomerates. It is found that the interphase has an average width of ~30 nm and modulus in the range of 5 to 12 GPa. The Halpin-Tsai micromechanical model is modified to account for the effect of interphase and filler agglomerates and the model predictions for the effective modulus of the composites are compared to the experimental data. The presented results highlight the need of considering various experimentally observed filler characteristics such as agglomerate size and aspect ratio and presence and properties of interphase in the micromechanical models in order to develop better design tools to fabricate multifunctional polymer nanocomposites with engineered properties.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society For Composite Materials Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.121-124
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• 2005

A novel process to fabricate carbon nanotube (CNT)/alumina nanocomposites, consisting of a molecular level mixing process and an in situ spark plasma sintering process, is proposed. The CNT/alumina nanocomposites fabricated by this proposed process show enhanced hardness due to a load transfer mechanism of the CNTs and increased fracture toughness arising from the bridging mechanism of CNTs during crack propagation

• Carbon letters
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.320-324
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• 2009

We investigated the effect of diameter and content of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) on the physical properties of styrenebutadiene rubber (SBR)/CNTs nanocomposites. CNTs-reinforced SBR nanocomposites were prepared by the melt mixing process. CNTs with different diameters were synthesized by the chemical vapor deposition method (CVD). In this work, the mechanical property and other physical properties of SBR/CNTS nanocomposites were discussed as a function of the content and diameter of CNTs.

• Polymer(Korea)
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.494-499
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• 2012

In this work, the effect of multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) on electromagnetic interference shielding effectiveness (EMI SE) and mechanical properties of MWCNT-reinforced polypropylene (PP) nanocomposites were investigated with varying MWCNT content from 1 to 10 wt%. Electric resistance was tested using a 4-point-probe electric resistivity tester. The EMI SE of the nanocomposites was evaluated by means of the reflection and adsorption methods. The mechanical properties of the nanocomposites were studied through the critical stress intensity factor ($K_{IC}$) measurement. The morphologies were observed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). From the results, it was found that the EMI SE was enhanced with increasing MWCNT content, which played a key factor to determine the EMI SE. The $K_{IC}$ value was increased with increasing MWCNT content, whereas the value decreased above 5 wt% MWCNT content. This was probably considered that the MWCNT entangled with each other in PP due to an excess of MWCNT.

• Elastomers and Composites
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.22-33
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• 2009

Recently, elastomer-nanocomposites reinforced with low volume fraction of nanofillers have attracted great interest due to their fascinating properties. The incorporation of nanofillers, such as, layered silicate clays, carbon nanotubes, nanofibers, calcium carbonate, metal oxides or silica nanoparticles into elastomers improves significantly their mechanical, thermal, dynamic mechanical, barrier properties, flame retardancy, etc. The properties of nanocomposites depend greatly on the chemistry of polymer matrices, nature of nanofillers, and the method in which they are prepared. The uniform dispersion of nanofillers in elastomer matrices is a general prerequisite for achieving desired mechanical and physical characteristics. In this paper, current developments in the field of elastomer nanocomposites reinforced with layered silicates, silica, carbon nanotubes, nanofibers and various other nanoparticles have been addressed.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society For Composite Materials Conference
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• 2005.04a
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• pp.261-264
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• 2005

Since the first discovery of carbon nanotube (CNT) in 1991, a window to new technological areas has been opened. One of the emerging applications of CNTs is the reinforcement of composite materials to overcome the performance limits of conventional materials. However, because of the difficulties in distributing CNTs homogeneously in metal or ceramic matrix by means of traditional composite processes, it has been doubted whether CNTs can really reinforce metals or ceramics. In this study, CNT reinforced Cu matrix nanocomposite is fabricated by a novel fabrication process named molecular level mixing process. This process produces CNT/Cu composite powders whereby the CNTs are homogeneously implanted within Cu powders. The CNT/Cu nanocomposite, consolidated by spark plasma sintering of CNT/Cu composite powders, shows to be 3 times higher strength and 2 times higher Young’s modulus than Cu matrix. This extra-ordinary strengthening effect of carbon nanotubes in metal is higher than that of any other reinforcement ever used for metal matrix composites.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2007.06a
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• pp.215-216
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• 2007

Semiconducting layers are thin rubber film between electrical cable wire and insulating polymer layers having a volume resistivity of ${\sim}10^2{\Omega}cm$. A new semiconducting material was suggested in this study based on the carbon nanotube(CNT)-reinforced polymer nanocomposites. CNT-reinforced polymer nanocomposites were prepared by solution mixing with various polymer type and dual filler system. The mechanical, thermal and electrical properties were investigated as a function of polymer type and dual filler system based on CNT and carbon black. The volume resistivity of composites was strongly related with the crystallinity of polymer matrix. With decreased crystallinity, the volume resistivity decreased linearly until a critical point, and it remained constant with further decreasing the crystallinity. Dual filler system also affected the volume resistivity. The CNT-reinforced nanocomposite showed the lowest volume resistivity. When a small amount of carbon black(CB) was replaced the CNT, the crystallinity increased considerably leading to a higher volume resistivity.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.423-430
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• 2013

In this research, a paramteric study to account for the effect of interfacial strength and nanotube agglomeration on the elastoplastic behavior of carbon nanotube reinforced polypropylene composites is performed. At first, the elastoplastic behavior of nanocomposites is predicted from molecular dynamics(MD) simulations. By combining the MD simulation results with the nonlinear micromechanics model based on the Mori-Tanaka model, a two-step domain decomposition method is applied to inversely identify the elastoplastic behavior of adsorption interphase zone inside nanocomposites. In nonlinear micromechanics model, the secant moduli method combined with field fluctuation method is used to predict the elastoplastic behavior of nanocomposites. To account for the imperfect material interface between nanotube and matrix polymer, displacement discontinuity condition is applied to the micromechanics model. Using the elastoplastic behavior of the adsorption interphase zone obtained from the present study, stress-strain relation of nanocomposites at various interfacial bonding condition and local nanotube agglomeration is predicted from nonlinear micromechanics model with and without the adsorption interphase zone. As a result, it has been found that local nanotube agglomeration is the most important design factor to maximize reinforcing effect of nanotube in elastic and plastic behavior.