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Improving the toughness and electrical conductivity of epoxy nanocomposites by using aligned carbon nanofibres Ladani, R, Wu, S, Kinloch, A, Ghorbani, K, Zhang, J, Mouritz, A and Wang, C 2015, 'Improving the toughness and electrical conductivity of epoxy nanocomposites by using aligned carbon nanofibres', Composites Science and Technology, vol. 117, pp. 146-158. Document type: Journal Article Collection: Journal Articles Attached Files Name Description MIMEType Size n2006054298.pdf Published Version application/pdf 4.14MB Title Improving the toughness and electrical conductivity of epoxy nanocomposites by using aligned carbon nanofibres Author(s) Ladani, R Wu, S Kinloch, A Ghorbani, K Zhang, J Mouritz, A Wang, C Year 2015 Journal name Composites Science and Technology Volume number 117 Start page 146 End page 158 Total pages 13 Publisher Elsevier Ltd Abstract There is an increasing demand for high performance composites with enhanced mechanical and electrical properties. Carbon nanofibres offer a promising solution but their effectiveness has been limited by difficulty in achieving directional alignment. Here we report the use of an alternating current (AC) electric field to align carbon nanofibres in an epoxy. During the cure process of an epoxy resin, carbon nanofibres (CNFs) are observed to rotate and align with the applied electric field, forming a chain-like structure. The fracture energies of the resultant epoxy nanocomposites containing different concentrations of CNFs (up to 1.6wt%) are measured using double cantilever beam specimens. The results show that the addition of 1.6wt% of aligned CNFs increases the electrical conductivity of such nanocomposites by about seven orders of magnitudes to 10-2S/m and increases the fracture energy, GIc, by about 1600% from 134 to 2345J/m2. A modelling technique is presented to quantify this major increase in the fracture energy with aligned CNFs. The results of this research open up new opportunities to create multi-scale composites with greatly enhanced multifunctional properties. Subject Aerospace Materials Composite and Hybrid Materials Keyword(s) A. Adhesive joints B. Fracture toughness C. Fibre bridging C. Modelling Fibre pull-out DOI - identifier 10.1016/j.compscitech.2015.06.006 Copyright notice © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) ISSN 0266-3538 Related Links Link Description https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compscitech.2015.06.006 Full text from publisher   Versions Version Filter Type Tue, 22 Dec 2015, 09:49:40 EST Wed, 02 Aug 2017, 10:46:44 EST Wed, 08 May 2019, 15:04:17 EST Thu, 11 Jul 2019, 10:57:11 EST Filtered Full Citation counts:   Cited 50 times in Thomson Reuters Web of Science Article | Citations Cited 30 times in Scopus Article | Citations Altmetric details: Access Statistics: 63 Abstract Views, 5 File Downloads  -  Detailed Statistics Created: Tue, 22 Dec 2015, 09:04:00 EST by Catalyst Administrator