Collaborative Research: Mechanical and Electrical Response of Novel Conductive Polymer Grafted CNT Reinforced Copolymers under Quasi-static and Dynamic Loadings

该合作项目的目标是开发智能聚合物材料，该材料可以通过嵌入式导电网络报告10至500 nm范围内的临界材料变形。 纳米结构的构建块将被合成以产生这样的网络。 构建块具有刷状结构，其中导电聚合物作为刷毛，并且碳纳米管（CNT）作为刷的骨架。 当将纳米刷共混到主体基体中时，导电聚合物将与主体聚合物缠结。刷结构被设计成响应于纳米变形来增强信号。从导电网络获得的电信号将比传统的机械应力-应变行为图在细节上丰富得多。这些细节将被用来验证或反驳先前提出的机制，以解释各种类型的准静态和动态加载条件下的机械应力-应变曲线。该项目的成果可用作智能传感器，包括桥梁、水电站、飞机、车辆溃缩区和智能防弹衣响应系统的结构健康监测。 这个合作研究项目将大大有利于研究生本科生通过与教师和学生在科学和工程从两个不同的大学互动。学生们将被要求参观当地的高中，在各种负载下演示拟议的导电系统的简单实验。该项目研究的结果也将定期在主要调查员的网页上公布，以便迅速传播信息。

The goal of this collaborative project is to develop smart polymeric materials that can report critical material deformation in the 10 to 500 nm range through an embedded electrically conductive network. Nano-structured building blocks will be synthesized to generate such network. The building block has a brush-like structure with electrically conducting polymers as the bristles, and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) as the backbone of the brush. When the nano-brushes are blended into the host matrix, the conducting polymers will be entangled with the host polymers. The brush structure is designed to enhance the signal in response to nano deformations. The electrical signals obtained from the conductive network will be far richer in details than traditional plots of mechanical stress-strain behavior. The details will be used to verify or refute the mechanisms previously proposed to explain the mechanical stress-strain curves under various types of quasi-static and dynamic loading conditions. The outcome of this project can be used as smart sensors that include structural health monitoring in bridges, hydropower plants, aircrafts, vehicle crumple zones and smart body-armor responsive systems. This collaborative research project will greatly benefit both graduate & undergraduate students by interacting with faculty and students in science and engineering from two different universities. The students will be asked to visit local high-schools for demonstrating simple experiments on proposed conductive systems under various loads. The results from this project study will also be posted regularly on web pages of principal investigators for speedy dissemination of information.