This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
This Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) project will study hybrid, multifunctional composites using surface grown carbon nanotubes on carbon fibers yarns. The resulting hybrid composites offer better alternatives to both fiber reinforced composite and carbon nanotubes based composites. The multiscale reinforcement offers an opportunity to place nanotubes in advantageous areas of the composite where conventional fiber architectures are inadequate. For radiation shielding the polymer matrix will provide resistance to high energy nuclear particles and the surface-grown carbon nanotubes will minimize the degradation of the overall structural properties of the hybrid composite. Moreover, the high electrical conductivities of carbon nanotubes will provide desirable electromagnetic shielding. This work will verify, through experiments and multiscale simulations, the impact resistance and the shielding effectiveness capabilities of the hybrid composites against high energy particles. This transformative research will pave the road for hybrid multifunctional composites with strength, toughness, and deformability higher than currently available polymer composites. Hybrid composites will enable significant protection against impact/blast events and will offer effective shielding against high energy particles radiation, lightning and EMI shielding from high power transmitters.
This project provides education and training components to engineering students through integrating research modules in the graduate/undergraduate courses. Five graduate students will participate in the synthesis, fabrication characterization, mechanical testing, irradiation and simulation of the hybrid composites toward their graduate degrees. Participating students will broaden their knowledge through active collaboration with intensive research institutes and a National Lab. The outreach plans offers summer teaching and training program to students in the Southwest Indian Polytechnic Institute.
