COMPRESSIBILITY OF CNT-GRAFTED FIBROUS REINFORCEMENTS: A THEORY

The paper introduces a theoretical model of compressibility of a nanotube forest with randomly oriented nanotubes, which is applied to predict compressibility of a fibrous reinforcement with CNT-grafted fibres. It is shown that the pressure needed to achieve the target fibre volume fraction of the perform increases drastically when CNT are present in the preform. This can lower the achievable fibre volume fraction for economical vacuum assisted light-RTM manufacturing techniques and increase the pressure requirements in autoclave processing. The modelling is complemented with experimental investigation of compressibility of woven carbon performs with CNT grown on the carbon twill 2/2 fabric using CVD method.