CNTs/Al-Li composite was first prepared by hot-pressed sintering from Al-Li alloy powder and CNTs solution, and then the hot compression tests were performed on MMS-100 thermal simulator at strain rate range of 0.01– 10 s− 1, deformation temperature range of 350–500 °C, and total deformation amount of 60%. True stress–strain curves were plotted, and constitutive equation as well as hot processing maps were successfully confirmed based on Arrhenius constitutive model and Prasad instability criterion. Results show that CNTs/Al-Li composite have a very poor hot deformation ability and narrow processing region, which is strain rate range of 0.1–1 s− 1 and deformation temperature range of 360–400 °C. Hot extrusion experiment was carried out and the processing parameters were selected according to the established hot processing map, and an improvement on strength and a good balance between strength and plasticity can be obtained, which is about 650 MPa for tensile strength and 9% for elongation.

This article presents recent advancements in the development of flexible piezoresistive strain sensors based on carbon nanotubes (CNTs)–polymer composites, with particular attention to their electromechanical properties. Various fabrication approaches and material preparation of CNTs–polymer composites with improved piezoresistive performance are introduced. Moreover, the article presents the working principle of the piezoresistive sensors in terms of the tunneling effect and disconnection-reconnection mechanism. The sensing performances of recently reported applications are studied. This work also reveals that the CNTs–polymer composites have great potential for flexible, skin-mountable, and wearable electronics applications. Finally, possible challenges for the future developments of CNTs–polymer composites are discussed.

A novel, unique, and effective method for carbon nanotube (CNT) dispersion by the free arc stimulation is proposed. CNTs are introduced as an aerogel into the air space via the dispersion method and can be utilized as a solution by adding it to solvents. The volume of the original generated CNT aerogel with a high-volume expansion ratio displays a performance two orders of magnitudes better than that of raw CNTs, which is considered a powerful characterization of the dispersion effect. The CNT aerogel, which was observed by scanning electron microscopy also showed a satisfactory dispersion morphology. Its structure and properties were tested before and after dispersion by Raman spectroscopy and great consistency was observed, which proved that the CNTs were undamaged. This approach may greatly promote the large-scale application of CNTs.

Comprehensive calculations of the Rh decoration effect on zigzag CNTs with n ranging from 7 to 12 were conducted in this work to understand the effect of Rh doping on geometric structures and electronic behaviors upon metallic and semiconducting CNTs. The obtained results indicated that Rh dopant not only contributes to the deformation of C-C bonds on the sidewall of CNTs, but also transforms the electron distribution of related complexes, thereby leading to a remarkable increase of the conductivity of pure CNTs given the emerged novel state within the energy gap for metallic CNTs and the narrowed energy gap for semiconducting CNTs. Our calculations will be meaningful for exploiting novel CNT-based materials with better sensitivity to electrons and higher electrical conductivity compared with pure CNTs.

This study is performed to fabricate a Ti porous body by freeze drying process using titanium hydride (TiH2) powder and camphene. Then, the Ti porous body is employed to synthesize carbon nanotubes (CNTs) using thermal catalytic chemical vapor deposition (CCVD) with Fe catalyst and methane (CH4) gas to increase the specific surface area. The synthesized Ti porous body has 100 μm-sized macropores and 10-30 μm-sized micropores. The synthesized CNTs have random directions and are entangled with adjacent CNTs. The CNTs have a bamboo-like structure, and their average diameter is about 50 nm. The Fe nano-particles observed at the tip of the CNTs indicate that the tip growth model is applicable. The specific surface area of the CNT-coated Ti porous body is about 20 times larger than that of the raw Ti porous body. These CNT-coated Ti porous bodies are expected to be used as filters or catalyst supports.

The effect of CNT diameters on properties of CNT-polyamide composites was investigated such as electrical conductivity, tensile strength and thermal conductivity. To get different diameter distributions of CNTs, several portions of Mo and Fe in Mo-Fe/MgO catalysts were synthesized by a combustion method at 600℃. And all CNTs growed at 900℃ with 3 SLM methane and 1 SLM hydrogen for 40min. Four kinds of CNTs with different diameter distributions, such as 1~3nm, 3~7nm, 7~13nm, and 10~30nm, were selected to make CNT-polyamide composites. Each composite was manufactured by a solution mixing using bar-type ultra-sonicator in the CNT portions from 1phr to 50phr. And electrical conductivity, tensile strength, and thermal conductivity were measured. Three properties of CNT-polyamide composite, manufactured with 10nm diameter, were more excellent compared to other composites, with electrical conductivity  Ω at 7phr, thermal conductivity 2.4.W/mK at 40phr, tensile strength 60MPa at 30phr. CNTs with a diameter of 10nm were superior to other diameters for the multi-functional composite such as CNT-polyamide composites.

The study of grinding behavior characteristics on aluminum powders and carbon nano tubes (CNTs) has recently gained scientific interest due to their useful effect in enhancing advanced nano materials and components, which significantly improves the property of new mechatronics integrated materials and components. We performed a series of dry grinding experiments using a planetary ball mill to systematically investigate the grinding behavior during Al/CNTs nano composite fabrication. This study focused on a comparative study of the various experimental conditions at several variations of rotation speeds, grinding time and with and without CNTs. The results were monitored for the particle size distribution, median diameter, crystal structure from XRD pattern and particle morphology at a given grinding time. It was observed that pure aluminum powders agglomerated with low rotation speed and completely enhanced powder agglomeration. However, Al/CNTs composites were achieved at maximum experiment conditions (350 rpm, 60 min.) of this study by a mechanical alloy process for Al/CNTs mixed powders because the grinding behavior of Al/CNTs composite powder was affected by addition of CNTs. Indeed, the powder morphology and crystal size of the composite powders changed more by an increase of grinding time and rotation speed.

A series of molecular dynamic (MD), finite element (FE) and ab initio simulations are carried out to establish suitable modeling schemes for the continuum-based analysis of aluminum matrix nanocomposites reinforced with carbon nanotubes (CNTs). From a comparison of the MD with FE models and inferences based on bond structures and electron distributions, we propose that the effective thickness of a CNT wall for its continuum representation should be related to the graphitic inter-planar spacing of 3.4Å. We also show that shell element representation of a CNT structure in the FE models properly simulated the carbon-carbon covalent bonding and long-range interactions in terms of the load-displacement behaviors. Estimation of the effective interfacial elastic properties by ab initio simulations showed that the in-plane interfacial bond strength is negligibly weaker than the normal counterpart due to the nature of the weak secondary bonding at the CNT-Al interface. Therefore, we suggest that a third-phase solid element representation of the CNT-Al interface in nanocomposites is not physically meaningful and that spring or bar element representation of the weak interfacial bonding would be more appropriate as in the cases of polymer matrix counterparts. The possibility of treating the interface as a simply contacted phase boundary is also discussed.

Electrical discharge machining (EDM) is an attractive machining technique but it requires electrically conductive ceramic materials. In this study, Alumina matrix composites reinforced with CNTs were fabricated through CNT purification, mixing, compaction and spark plasma sintering (SPS) processes. nanocomposites with the different CNT concentrations were synthesized. The mechanical and electrical characteristics of /CNTs composites were examined in order to apply the materials to the EDM process. In addition, micro-EDM using wire electrical discharge grinding (WEDG) was conducted under the various EDM parameters to investigate the machining characteristics of machined hole by Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (FE-SEM). The results show that /CNTs 10%Vol. was more suitable than the other materials because high conductivity and large discharge energy caused violent sparks resulting in bad machining accuracy and surface quality.

An optimum route to synthesize composite powders with homogeneous dispersion of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) was investigated. nanocomposite powders were fabricated by thermal chemical vapor deposition of gas over nanocomposite catalyst prepared by selective reduction of metal powders. The FT-Raman spectroscopy analysis revealed that the CNTs have single- and multi-walled structure. The CNTs with the diameter of 25-43 nm were homogeneously distributed in the powders, and their characteristics were strongly affected by a kind of metal catalyst and catalyst size. The experimental results show that the composite powder with required size and dispersion of CNTs can be realized by control of synthesis condition

The synthetic behaviors of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) by Fe/MgO catalysts were investigated in 0~90 wt.% range of MgO mixture ratios by catalytic chemical vapor deposition (CCVD) process. The CNTs were synthesized with 40 minutes of synthetic time, and 923 K of synthetic temperature using 0.1 L/min of ethylene gas and 1.0 L/min of hydrogen gas as synthetic and carrier gas, respectively. As the increase of synthetic temperatures and times, the diameters of CNTs become thicker. The carbon yield showed in a parabolic curve as MgO content increased and the maximum carbon yield was obtained at 30 wt.% of MgO. There were no obvious changes in the diameters of CNTs respect to the change of MgO content. Fe/MgO CNTs showed good crystalinity by High Resolution Transmission Electron microscope (HR-TEM) analysis. The behaviors of Fe/MgO CNTs have a tendency of depending on synthetic time and temperature rather than MgO content.

The effect of compositions of Al2O3 in the mixed Fe/Al2O3 catalysts on the synthetic behaviors of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) by catalytic chemical vapor deposition (CCVD) process was investigated in wide range of the mixture ratios of support materials. CNTs were synthesized with Fe/Al2O3 catalysis under the condition of 40 min in synthetic time, and 923 K of synthetic temperature using C2H4 and H2 as synthetic and carrier gas, respectively. The carbon yield with the content of Al2O3 showed in a parabolic curve and the maximum carbon yield was 40 wt.% of Al2O3. As the mixture ratio of Al2O3 increased, decreasing tendency was observed in the diameter of CNTs. Specific surface areas of CNTs were increased with the increase of the mixture ratio of Al2O3.