Recent advances in graphene based nano-composites for automotive and off-highway vehicle applications

Abstract

Nano-composites comprised of a polymer matrix and various types of nanosized fillers have remained as one of the most important engineering materials and continue to draw great interest in the research community and industry. In particular, graphene based nano-composites with high thermal conductivity, excellent mechanical, electrical and optical properties, becomes important and promising filler for making the next generation, high performance composite materials. Automotive and off-highway machinery industry are extensively viewed as being the industry in which the highest volume of advanced composite materials such as graphene based nano-composites will be used in the future to produce lighter, stronger, more energy-efficient, and safe vehicles. Design, modeling, analyzing and methods for large-scale production of the graphene based nano-composites in automotive and off-highway machinery applications considering it’s mechanical, functional and interface properties between the graphene and polymer matrix under severe loading conditions is challenging, potentially due to nonlinear properties, joining of dissimilar materials and high demand of computations. While graphene based material strategies have been investigated and demonstrated to be effective for structural application in various industries includes electronics, electromechanical and energy systems, currently there is limited research highlighting the specific knowledge available for design engineers and researchers concerned with lightweight and stronger solutions by use of graphene based materials for automotive off-highway vehicle applications. The present review presents, an overview of the latest studies that utilize graphene-based nanomaterials and their composites in automotive and off-highway machinery applications. First, the paper describes the concept of traditional composites used in present engineering industries considering its advantages and limitations, then highlights the key benefits of using nanostructured carbon material, such as graphene through some recent studies available in the literature. Then depicts the various mechanisms of integrating graphene as polymer reinforcements within composite materials, which have been found based on the survey, and their related modeling, designing, and manufacturing capabilities suitable for automotive and off-highway machinery industry. Finally outlines the available experimental evidence for graphene based composites. In order to lay the groundwork for future work in this exciting area, the paper discusses close by several future prospects as well as the current challenges in this field.