Improving the fatigue life of composite by using multiwall carbon nanotubes

Abstract

Abstract The fatigue life of polymer materials like epoxy can be improved by using stiffeners such as carbon fiber and/or adding multiwall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs). This article studies the effect of adding MWCNTs with different ratios (0.5, 1, and 2 wt%) to epoxy and composite (epoxy + 30% carbon fibers). The experimental results of the fatigue test with fully reversed bending stress (with R = −1) showed a maximum increase of 788% in fatigue life when adding 1 wt% MWCNTs to epoxy, while the maximum improvement ratio reaches 2,500% when adding 1 wt% MWCNTs to composite. The best results of fatigue life improvement were observed for samples with MWCNTs of 1 wt%. The material will be transferred from low cycle fatigue (less than 105 cycles) to high cycle fatigue (more than 105 cycles) by adding 1 wt% of MWCNTs. At the same time, the ratio of MWCNTs of more than 1 wt% (such as 2 wt%) will decrease the fatigue life due to the agglomeration of nanotubes inside the resin and reduce the positive effect of it. These agglomeration points work as a barrier to load transfer and stress concentration points. The numerical model was built to simulate the fatigue test and compare the results with the experimental with a discrepancy value of 7.5%.