NER: Light-Weight Minimally-Intrusive Damping Films Featuring Carbon Nanotubes

该项目研究了利用紧密堆积的、高度互连的多壁碳纳米管(纳米膜)网络之间的能量耗散来增强复合材料结构中的阻尼的可能性。在该项目中开发的新型纳米工程减振薄膜有望提供几个优点：1)纳米薄膜的结构/性能在600℃以下不会退化，并有望为高温应用提供优异的性能和可靠性。2)纳米薄膜在复合结构中共固化时不会表现出树脂的渗透性，并且有可能无缝地集成到多相体系中。3)纳米薄膜除了能起到减震的作用外，还能提供多种功能。纳米薄膜的比硬度预计将比商业上可用的粘弹性聚合物薄膜大一个数量级。这一研究项目旨在进一步探索和发展这些概念，以便能够有效地将这些新型多功能材料合成成多尺度结构系统。该项目涉及材料科学(纳米结构的图案化和组装)和机械工程(复合材料的减振和刚度增加)之间的强大跨学科合作。该项目将帮助伦斯勒理工学院培养1名博士生和几名本科生(在本科生研究项目-URP计划下)。

This project investigates the potential for augmenting damping incomposite structures by taking advantage of the energy dissipation betweendensely packed, highly interconnected networks of multi-walled carbonnanotubes (nano-films) . The novel, nano-engineered damping filmsdeveloped in this project are expected to offer several advantages: 1) Nano-films show no degradation in structure/properties upto 600 deg C and are expected to offer superior performance and reliability for hightemperature applications. 2) Nano-films do not exhibit resin penetrationwhen co-cured within composite structures and could potentially beseamlessly integrated into heterogeneous systems. 3) Nano-films offermulti-functionality in terms of enhanced stiffness in addition to dampingaugmentation. The specific stiffness of nano-films are expected to be anorder of magnitude greater than commercially available viscoelasticpolymer films. This research project is directed towards further exploringand developing these concepts so as to enable the efficient synthesis ofthese novel multifunctional materials into multi-scale structural systems.The project involves strong interdisciplinary collaboration betweenmaterial science (patterning and assembly of nanostructures) andmechanical engineering (damping and stiffness increase in composites). The project will contribute to the training of 1 Ph.D student and severalundergraduate students (under the Undergraduate Research Projects - URPProgram) at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.