Study of the Effect of Carbon Nano-Tube Waviness and Volume Fraction on the Damping Property of a Polymer Composite

Composites including carbon nanotubes are of great value due to their thermal, electrical and mechanical properties. They have a wide range of uses in the structural and electrical/electronic industry due to their high strength to weight ratio and high conductivity. Here we study the effect of carbon nanotube waviness and volume fraction on the damping properties of a polymer composite. The analysis is done using the finite element method over a representative volume element which consists of carbon nanotubes as inclusions dispersed in a viscoelastic matrix. The carbon nanotubes are of similar density as the matrix but have a higher modulus of elasticity. This study analyzes the effect of change in volume fraction and waviness of the nanotubes on the damping properties when subjected to a range of vibration frequencies under mixed boundary conditions. This study also analyzes the effect of two different loading direction while keeping the boundary conditions the same. It has been observed that the damping capacity of the composite is greatly dependent on applied loading frequency. Also, the damping capacity of composite decreases significantly as the volume fraction of nanotubes increases. The waviness of nanotubes also has a similar effect on damping property of composite as of volume fraction of nanotubes.