| About this Abstract |
| Meeting |
2024 ASC Technical Conference, US-Japan Joint Symposium, D30 Meeting
|
| Symposium
|
2024 ASC Technical Conference, US-Japan Joint Symposium, D30 Meeting
|
| Presentation Title |
Gamma-Ray Irradiation of CNT Yarns for Improved Composite Strength: A Molecular Dynamics Study |
| Author(s) |
Gregory Odegard, Sagar Patil, Josh Kemppainen, Trevor Wavrunek |
| On-Site Speaker (Planned) |
Sagar Patil |
| Abstract Scope |
CNT yarns are used in ultra-high strength composites for use in manned deep-space vehicles. It has been previously demonstrated through experiments that gamma-ray irradiation substantially improves the mechanical performance of these composites. It is unclear how the irradiation affects the mechanical response of the CNT yarn/polymer interface that ultimately leads to these panel-level performance improvements. Physical insight into this process could enable further improvements in the CNT yarn/polymer interface design in the future. The objective of this research is to use molecular dynamics simulation to provide physical insight into the effect of gamma-ray irradiation on the mechanical behavior of the CNT yarn/polymer interface for a range of high-performance polymer systems, including Bismaleimide (BMI), epoxy, polybenzoxazine (PBZ), and cyanate esters. Simulations were performed to predict the interaction energy, mechanical shearing response, and mechanical tension response at the CNT yarn/polymer interface.
The results of the simulations indicate that gamma-ray irradiation of CNT yarns results in a significant increase in interfacial shear properties for all the polymer systems. In tension, gamma-ray irradiation only improves the toughness in the BMI and cyanate ester systems. The interaction energy is mostly unaffected by gamma-ray irradiation. Taken together, it is clear that gamma-ray irradiation does improve the overall mechanical performance of the CNT yarn/polymer interface, which likely contributes to the increases in composite panel-level performance observed experimentally. The computational tools developed herein could be applied to other nanocomposite systems for a wide range of engineering applications. |
| Proceedings Inclusion? |
Definite: Post-meeting proceedings |