Dissertation
Micromechanics of carbon nanotube turfs
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
01/2014
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/5349
Abstract
Complex structures consisting of intertwined, nominally vertical carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are called turfs. Unique electrical, thermal, optical, and permeability properties of these turfs have attracted growing attention during the past decade, and have rendered them as appropriate candidates for applications such as contact thermal switches. These properties are controlled by the details of the turf microstructures. Due to the application of the turfs in different fields, they are subjected to different loading conditions. Deformation changes the microstructure of a CNT turf, which results in change of effective properties. Many researchers have recently studied the collective mechanical behavior of CNT turfs to compression loading, as this behavior determines their performance. However, their complex and intertwined structure must be investigated in more details to find the relation between their deformation and their underlying morphology.
Under uniform compression experiments, CNT turfs exhibit irreversible collective buckling of a layer preceded by reorientation of CNT segments. Experimentally observed independence of the buckling stress and the buckling wavelength on the turf width suggests the existence of an intrinsic material length. To investigate the relationship the macroscopic material properties and the statistical parameters describing the nano-scale geometry of the turf (tortuosity, density and connectivity) we develop a nano-scale computational model, based on the representation of CNT segments as elastica finite elements with van der Waals interactions. The virtual turfs are generated by means of a constrained random walk algorithm and subsequent relaxation. The resulting computational model is robust and is capable of modeling the collective behavior of CNTs. We first establish the dependence of statistical parameters on the computational parameters used for turf generation, then establish relationships between post-buckling stress, initial elastic modulus and buckling wavelength on statistical turf parameters. Finally, we analyze the reorientation of buckling planes of individual CNTs during the collective buckling process.
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Details
- Title
- Micromechanics of carbon nanotube turfs
- Creators
- Hamid Torabi
- Contributors
- Sinisa Mesarovic (Advisor)David Field (Committee Member)William Cofer (Committee Member)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Mechanical and Materials Engineering, School of
- Theses and Dissertations
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
- Number of pages
- 87
- Identifiers
- 99900581842001842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Dissertation