Study of thermal conductivity and stress-strain compression behavior of epoxy composites highly filled with Al and Al/f-MWCNT obtained by high-energy ball milling

The paper presents a method of manufacturing highly filled aluminum-carbon nanotubes/epoxy composites. Aluminum and aluminum-carbon nanotubes powder with various particle-size distributions and morphologies were obtained by high-energy ball milling. Thermal conductivity and compressive stress-strain behavior of aluminum/epoxy composites strongly depended on the mean size of aluminum particles and carbon nanotubes content. The thermal conductivity of 23 W/m·K and compressive strength of 160 MPa were achieved for the aluminum/epoxy composite with 80 wt% (or 63 vol.%) filler loading. Additions of 2 wt% of carbon nanotubes led to an increase in the compressive strength of the aluminum/epoxy composite from 160 to 195 MPa, but they impaired the value of thermal conductivity (13.5 W/m·K).