Carbon fiber reinforced thermosetting polymer composites were fabricated and characterized in this study. Endo-dicyclopentadiene (endo-DCPD), ethylidene norbornene (ENB), and their blends were used as matrix resins and multi-walled carbon nanotube (MW...
Carbon fiber reinforced thermosetting polymer composites were fabricated and characterized in this study. Endo-dicyclopentadiene (endo-DCPD), ethylidene norbornene (ENB), and their blends were used as matrix resins and multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWNT), carbon nanofiber (CNF), and short carbon fiber (SCF) were as reinforcements. The matrix resins were cured via the ring-opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP) reaction in the presence of the 1st generation and 2nd generation Grubbs' catalysts. To understand ROMP mechanisms of the matrix resins under the two different catalysts, the resins were analyzed using fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) during curing. It revealed that the ROMP mechanism involved in the reaction system strongly depends on the type of the Grubbs' catalysts used.
DSC dynamic scans showed that ROMP reaction is accelerated with increase of ENB ratio in the endo-DCPD/ENB blends. Thermal/mechanical properties from tensile and dynamic mechanical measurements were decreased in the higher ENB ratios of the blends. This is because addition of linear/branched molecules of polyENB into highly crosslinked polyDCPD lower overall crosslinking density.
Thermal and mechanical properties of the resins incorporated with MWNT, CNF, and SCF in different loadings were investigated in this work. As a result, SCF-based composites showed a large increase in tensile modulus by about 100 % at a 20 wt% SCF loading. However, elongation-at-break and tensile toughness were greatly reduced. For MWNT-based composites, elongation-at-break and tensile toughness were increased up to a 0.4 wt% MWNT loading by about 22 % and then decreased at 0.8 wt% MWNT. The reduction of the properties is due to the aggregation of MWNT within matrix at higher loadings. Incorporation of CNF into the resins led to reduction in mechanical properties. For the all fillers used in this work, the 1st generation catalyst systems exhibited superior in tensile toughness to the 2nd generation systems. The effects of Grubbs' catalysts and blending ratios of endo-DCPD and ENB on gel fraction and swell behavior were also examined and the dispersity and interfacial adhesion of the fillers were observed using FE-SEM.
In addition, polypropylene (PP) composites containing conductive MWNT (multi-walled carbon nanotube) and SSF (stainless steel short fiber) were manufactured using a twin screw extruder and characterized their surface resistivity and mechanical properties in this work. Surface resistivity measurements showed that the percolation threshold appeared at a lower MWNT loading when a small amount of SSF was added to PP/MWNT composites. Tensile modulus and strength of the composites increased but elongation-at-break decreased greatly compared to pure PP. Also, effects of MWNT and SSF on storage modulus and tan δ from dynamic mechanical analysis for the composites were examined, and morphologies of fractured surface and the fillers were observed using SEM.