Multi-scale numerical simulations of thermal expansion properties of CNT-reinforced nanocomposites

作者:Alamusi; Hu, Ning*; Qiu, Jianhui; Li, Yuan; Chang, Christiana; Atobe, Satoshi; Fukunaga, Hisao; Liu, Yaolu; Ning, Huiming; Wu, Liangke; Li, Jinhua; Yuan, Weifeng; Watanabe, Tomonori; Yan, Cheng; Zhang, Yajun
来源:Nanoscale Research Letters, 2013, 8(1): 15.
DOI:10.1186/1556-276X-8-15

摘要

In this work, the thermal expansion properties of carbon nanotube (CNT)-reinforced nanocomposites with CNT content ranging from 1 to 15 wt% were evaluated using a multi-scale numerical approach, in which the effects of two parameters, i.e., temperature and CNT content, were investigated extensively. For all CNT contents, the obtained results clearly revealed that within a wide low-temperature range (30 degrees C similar to 62 degrees C), thermal contraction is observed, while thermal expansion occurs in a high-temperature range (62 degrees C similar to 120 degrees C). It was found that at any specified CNT content, the thermal expansion properties vary with temperature - as temperature increases, the thermal expansion rate increases linearly. However, at a specified temperature, the absolute value of the thermal expansion rate decreases nonlinearly as the CNT content increases. Moreover, the results provided by the present multi-scale numerical model were in good agreement with those obtained from the corresponding theoretical analyses and experimental measurements in this work, which indicates that this multi-scale numerical approach provides a powerful tool to evaluate the thermal expansion properties of any type of CNT/polymer nanocomposites and therefore promotes the understanding on the thermal behaviors of CNT/polymer nanocomposites for their applications in temperature sensors, nanoelectronics devices, etc.