On Viscoelasticity in CNT-Reinforced Polymer Composites

The nanocomposites exhibit high electrical conductivity, significant non-linear optical behavior and electroluminescence, while having substantially improved mechanical properties relative to the neat polymer. However, very limited attention has been paid to the viscoelastic behavior of nanotube reinforced polymer composites (NTRPCs). In this paper, the constitutive relation and linear viscoelastic behavior of NTRPC are studied using methods of micromechanics and nanomechanics. First, the effects of volume fraction, aspect ratio and orientation of carbon nanotubes (CNTs), on the overall elastic properties of NTRPC are obtained through a micromechanical technique based on Eshelby’s Equivalent Inclusion (EEI) and Mori-Tanaka (MT) method. Secondly, by incorporating the Dynamic Correspondence Principle (DCP), the elastic solution is extended to solve the related linear viscoelastic problem. The results of this study are in good agreement when compared with previous analytical and experimental data.