TY - JOUR
T1 - Multi-scale numerical simulations of thermal expansion properties of CNT-reinforced nanocomposites
AU - Alamusi,
AU - Hu, Ning
AU - Qiu, Jianhui
AU - Li, Yuan
AU - Chang, Christiana
AU - Atobe, Satoshi
AU - Fukunaga, Hisao
AU - Liu, Yaolu
AU - Ning, Huiming
AU - Wu, Liangke
AU - Li, Jinhua
AU - Yuan, Weifeng
AU - Watanabe, Tomonori
AU - Yan, Cheng
AU - Zhang, Yajun
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors are grateful to be partly supported by the Grand-in-Aid for Scientific Research (no. 22360044) from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) of Japan.
PY - 2013
Y1 - 2013
N2 - 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°C ~ 62°C), thermal contraction is observed, while thermal expansion occurs in a high-temperature range (62°C ~ 120°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.
AB - 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°C ~ 62°C), thermal contraction is observed, while thermal expansion occurs in a high-temperature range (62°C ~ 120°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.
KW - Carbon nanotube (CNT)
KW - Numerical analysis
KW - Polymer-matrix composites (PMC)
KW - Thermal properties
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U2 - 10.1186/1556-276X-8-15
DO - 10.1186/1556-276X-8-15
M3 - Article
C2 - 23294669
AN - SCOPUS:84875131737
VL - 8
SP - 1
EP - 8
JO - Nanoscale Research Letters
JF - Nanoscale Research Letters
SN - 1931-7573
IS - 1
M1 - 15
ER -