%0 Journal Article
%T Multi-scale numerical simulations of thermal expansion properties of CNT-reinforced nanocomposites
%A Alamusi
%A Ning Hu
%A Jianhui Qiu
%A Yuan Li
%A Christiana Chang
%A Satoshi Atobe
%A Hisao Fukunaga
%A Yaolu Liu
%A Huiming Ning
%A Liangke Wu
%A Jinhua Li
%A Weifeng Yuan
%A Tomonori Watanabe
%A Cheng Yan and Yajun Zhang
%J Nanoscale Research Letters
%D 2013
%I 
%R 10.1186/1556-276X-8-15
%X In this work, the thermal expansion properties of carbon nanotube (CNT)-reinforced nanocomposites with CNT content ranging from 1 to 15 wt% were evaluated using a multi-scale numerical approach, in which the effects of two parameters, i.e., temperature and CNT content, were investigated extensively. For all CNT contents, the obtained results clearly revealed that within a wide low-temperature range (30ˇăC ~ 62ˇăC), thermal contraction is observed, while thermal expansion occurs in a high-temperature range (62ˇăC ~ 120ˇăC). It was found that at any specified CNT content, the thermal expansion properties vary with temperature - as temperature increases, the thermal expansion rate increases linearly. However, at a specified temperature, the absolute value of the thermal expansion rate decreases nonlinearly as the CNT content increases. Moreover, the results provided by the present multi-scale numerical model were in good agreement with those obtained from the corresponding theoretical analyses and experimental measurements in this work, which indicates that this multi-scale numerical approach provides a powerful tool to evaluate the thermal expansion properties of any type of CNT/polymer nanocomposites and therefore promotes the understanding on the thermal behaviors of CNT/polymer nanocomposites for their applications in temperature sensors, nanoelectronics devices, etc.
%K Polymer-matrix composites (PMC)
%K Thermal properties
%K Numerical analysis
%K Carbon nanotube (CNT)
%U http://www.nanoscalereslett.com/content/8/1/15/abstract