Carbon nanotube yarn and 3-D braid composites. Part I: Tensile testing and mechanical properties analysis

Macroscopic textile preforms were produced with a multi-level hierarchical carbon nanotube (CNT) structure: nanotubes, bundles, spun single yarns, plied yarns and 3-D braids. The 3-D braided preform was the first of its kind produced by textile processing technique and used as a composite reinforcement consisting solely of carbon nanotubes. Four different epoxy systems that possessed a wide range of mechanical properties (owed to an added modifier) were infused into the CNT yarns and 3-D braids. Mechanical characterization of the resulting composites was conducted through the use of tensile testing. It was found that the tensile strength, stiffness and, especially, strain-to-failure values for each preform type were close regardless of the properties of the matrix whose strain-to-failure values ranged from 3.6% to 89%. This is hypothetically attributed to the nano-scale interaction between individual nanotubes and polymeric macromolecules in the composites. This hypothesis is validated by the Dynamic Mechanical Analysis results in Part II.