Effect of carbon nanotube interleaves on the flexural behaviour of CFRP composites

The latest generation of advanced FRP composites with nano-scale reinforcements such as carbon nanotubes (CNT), carbon nano fibres (CNF), graphene or nanoclay are expected to find increasing use in aerospace applications in the following years [1]. These multi-scale or hierarchical composites provide improved structural properties such as excellent delamination resistance and in-plane mechanical properties in addition to non-structural properties such as improved thermal and electrical conductivity, electromagnetic shielding, self-sensing behaviour, etc [2]. CNT films are highly porous two-dimensional CNTs network structures that are emerging as an effective way for introducing nano-reinforcements in composites as
interleaves. The films can be easily integrated into the existing composite material and producing large-area CNT films is more cost-effective than CNT fibers and dispersed solutions. Carbon nanotubes films (JCNTF-20C) of thickness about 10~15 microns was synthesized, composed, collected and deposited in a reactor by Floating
Catalyst Chemical Vapor Deposition (FCCVD) by JCNANO Technology Co., LTD,
Nanjing, China. In this paper, the flexural behaviour of CNT film interleaved CFRP
composites is investigated. The unidirectional carbon fiber/epoxy prepreg was
manufactured using high-strength carbon fiber TC-33 (T300) from Formosa Plastics Corporation, Taiwan, China. Two configurations of the interleaved CNT films, namely two plies (CNT2) and four plies (CNT4) are compared to the reference case of CFRP composite with no CNT film interlayers (CNT0).