"Development, processing and characterization of multiscale composite materials"

在过去的十年中，对聚合物纳米复合材料的基础研究已经导致了新的纳米改性聚合物的开发，这些聚合物具有改进的机械、热和电性能。 这些纳米改性聚合物可以通过常规加工方法掺入纤维增强复合材料中，以获得具有增强的性能或多功能属性的多尺度复合材料。 然而，纳米化学品或纳米颗粒的整合对聚合物的物理化学性质如粘度、结晶度和固化行为具有巨大的影响。 这通常导致加工性能差，从而导致产品变化大，质量和性能低。 因此，必须对这些新的多尺度复合系统的发展进行更多的研究。 拟议的研究计划的主要目标是开发新型多尺度复合材料与纳米改性聚合物和连续纤维使用一个集成的框架，包括建模，加工和表征。 材料系统将包括合成和生物基环氧树脂、热塑性塑料、碳纳米管、纤维素纳米纤维、碳纤维和天然纤维。 这项工作需要开发模型，预测纳米改性聚合物的物理，机械和加工性能作为纳米粒子分散，浓度，纯化，功能化和取向的函数。 此外，开发创新的加工技术来生产纳米改性聚合物和多尺度复合材料至关重要。 最后，加工，物理和机械性能的表征需要评估所生产的多尺度复合材料的质量。 拟议的计划可以帮助开发新的纳米复合材料制造技术，这些技术将充分利用碳纳米管等纳米颗粒的潜力。

Over the last decade, fundamental researches on polymer nanocomposites have lead to the development of new nanomodified polymers with improved mechanical, thermal and electrical properties. These nanomodified polymers can be incorporated in fibre reinforced composites by conventional processing methods to obtain a multiscale composite material with enhanced properties or multifunctional attributes. However, the integration of nanochemicals or nanoparticles has a huge impact on the polymer physico-chemical properties such as viscosity, crystallinity and curing behaviour. This often results in poor processability, which leads to large product variability, low quality and performance. Thus, more research on the development of these new multiscale composite systems must be conducted. The main objective of the proposed research program is to develop novel multiscale composite materials with nanomodified polymers and continuous fibres using an integrated framework that includes modelling, processing and characterization. The material systems will consist of synthetic and biobased epoxy resins, thermoplastics, carbon nanotubes, cellulose nanofibres, carbon fibres and natural fibres. This effort requires the development of models that predict the physical, mechanical and processing properties of nanomodified polymers as a function of nanoparticles dispersion, concentration, purification, functionalization and orientation. Furthermore, the development of innovative processing techniques to produce the nanomodified polymers and the multiscale composites is paramount. Finally, the characterization of processing, physical and mechanical properties is required to assess the quality of the produced multiscale composites. The proposed program could help develop new nanocomposites manufacturing techniques that will use the full potential of nanoparticles such as carbon nanotubes.