Effect of Imperfections on Elastic Stiffness of Polymers Reinforced with Long Aligned Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes

Abstract

Theoretically, the polymers reinforced with long aligned single-walled carbon nanotubes (LASWCNTs) must have one order of magnitude larger stiffness and strength than the classical carbon fiber reinforced polymers. However, imperfections such as vacancy defects in the single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs), undulation, and clustering of SWCNTs in the polymer matrix are known to adversely affect the otherwise superior properties of LASWCNT-reinforced polymer composites. The determination of unbiased relative importance of various forms of imperfections is important to determine the most efficient strategies to produce polymers reinforced with LASWCNTs. An investigation of stochastic effects of imperfections in the form of vacancy defects in the nanotubes, undulation of nanotubes, and clustering of nanotubes on the initial elastic stiffness of LASWCNT-reinforced polymer composites is presented. To this end, first the effect of vacancy defects on axial elastic stiffness of imperfect LASWCNTS is determined b...