Continuous Carbon Nanotube-PDMS Composites

Carbon nanotubes are considered short fibers and the nanotube reinforced composites are always analogues of randomly distributed short fiber composites. In contrast, the real structural fibrous composites often contain fiber reinforcements where fibers run continuously through the matrix material. With the recent advance in nanotube growth, vertical arrays of nanotubes in macroscopic lengths have become available and this allows the fabrication of continuous nano-composites that are similar to the continuous fiber composites utilizing the nanotube arrays as the continuous reinforcement in the composites. This provides a chance to take full advantage of the extreme high modulus and strength for the nanotubes in structural composites. Here, this study fabricates continuous nanotube reinforced polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) composites and shows that under compressive loadings such continuous nanotube composites can generate dramatic increase in the longitudinal modulus and also significantly enhanced damping capability.