Projecte llegit
Títol: Characterisation of carbon fibre reinforced epoxy matrix composites with nanocarbon tubes as reinforcement agent within the matrix
Director/a: SALAN BALLESTEROS, MARIA NURIA
Departament: CEM
Títol: Characterisation of carbon fibre reinforced epoxy matrix composites with nanocarbon tubes as reinforcement agent within the matrix
Data inici oferta: 29-07-2011 Data finalització oferta: 29-03-2012
Estudis d'assignació del projecte:
| Tipus: Individual | |
| Lloc de realització: |
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| Segon director/a (UPC): PAGÈS FIGUERAS, PEDRO | |
| Paraules clau: | |
| PMC, nanofibers, nanocomposites, CNT | |
| Descripció del contingut i pla d'activitats: | |
| The aim of this project is to show the mechanical properties of a carbon fiber reinforced composite material having a matrix composed of a epoxy matrix resin AMROY HYBTONITE AFLV UN®[AMROY Website] which is reinforced furthermore with Carbon Nano Tubes (CNT's), using the so called resin infusion fabrication technique[RTM note], employing the CNT's reinforced epoxy matrix, commercially available. For comparison purposes, the AMROY EPOPOX FD®[AMROY Website] matrix, which uses the same Epoxy base as the HYBTONITE® matrix (except for the CNT's addition) was used. Reinforcing carbon fiber plies are available from TORAYCA®[TORAY Website].
The idea behind evaluating the performance of such composite materials is to collect and understand information about the impact of CNT's dispersed within the matrix from a mechanical point of view. The used epoxy matrices and carbon fiber plies are easily obtained from AMROY and TORAY INDUSTRIES, INC respectively. |
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| Overview (resum en anglès): | |
| This project is about mechanical characterization of high performance, structural composite materials. Within the context of this project, a commercial, now available epoxy resin reinforced with carbon nanotubes (CNTs) was
compared with a high performance commercially available epoxy resin, also using unidirectional carbon fiber as reinforcement agent. CNTs are a relatively new, interesting topic to study within the materials science, and because of the potential shown in previous studies, are of utter importance for critical structural applications, such as those found in the aerospace industry. During this project previous references were studied and used as comparison material to design the methodological framework followed in this work. To observe CNTs benefits, samples tailored to American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) standards were manufactured and tested in order to quantify the mechanical properties discussed in this. ASTM standards provide both the sample dimension requirements and the testing procedure to be followed in order to obtain reliable, organized, meaningful data from proposed tests. Tensile, shear and flexural strain-strength tests were performed in samples using both kinds of resins. Data collected from tests was organized, plotted and analyzed to understand mechanical behavior of the samples during the tests. Main engineering values such as ultimate tensile strength, engineering stress, youngs modulus, shear strength and so were gathered and documented in this project. CNTs reinforced epoxy samples outperformed the common epoxy samples in general, showing a better behavior as seen in the deformation energy absorbed in the samples in each test. It is encouraged to keep the research on the CNTs topic as a promising and relevant technology called to grow in use and performance in the future, as well as to expand and improve the difficulties and limitations found in this project. This project shows that even when using a low CNTs content as reinforcement agent within the matrix, evaluated mechanical properties are effectively enhanced, making the CNTs a good candidate for future composite material components where weight saving and better structural mechanical performance is needed. |
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