Micromechanics and macromechanics of carbon nanotube-enhanced elastomers

The effects of carbon nanotubes on the mechanical behavior of elastomeric materials is investigated. The large deformation uniaxial tension and uniaxial compression stress–strain behaviors of a representative elastomer are first presented. This elastomer is then reinforced with multi-wall carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) and the influence of weight fraction of MWNTs on the large deformation behavior of the resulting composite is quantified. The initial stiffness and subsequent strain-induced stiffening at large strains are both found to increase with MWNT content. The MWNTs are also found to increase both the tensile strength and the tensile stretch at break. A systematic approach for reducing the experimental data to isolate the MWNT contribution to the strain energy of the composite is presented. A constitutive model for the large strain deformation behavior of MWNT-elastomer composites is then developed. The effects of carbon nanotubes are modeled via a constitutive element which tracks the stretching and rotation of a distribution of wavy carbon nanotubes. The MWNT strain energy contribution is due to the bending/unbending of the initial waviness and provides the increase in initial stiffness as well as the retention and further enhancement of the increase in stiffness with large strains. The model is shown to track the stretching and rotation of the CNTs with macroscopic strain as well as predict the dependence of the macroscopic stress–strain behavior on the MWNT content for both uniaxial tension and uniaxial compression.