NER: Light-Weight Minimally-Intrusive Damping Films Featuring Carbon Nanotubes

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY

Investigators

Abstract

This project investigates the potential for augmenting damping in composite structures by taking advantage of the energy dissipation between densely packed, highly interconnected networks of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (nano-films) . The novel, nano-engineered damping films developed in this project are expected to offer several advantages: 1) Nano-films show no degradation in structure/properties upto 600 deg C and are expected to offer superior performance and reliability for high temperature applications. 2) Nano-films do not exhibit resin penetration when co-cured within composite structures and could potentially be seamlessly integrated into heterogeneous systems. 3) Nano-films offer multi-functionality in terms of enhanced stiffness in addition to damping augmentation. The specific stiffness of nano-films are expected to be an order of magnitude greater than commercially available viscoelastic polymer films. This research project is directed towards further exploring and developing these concepts so as to enable the efficient synthesis of these novel multifunctional materials into multi-scale structural systems. The project involves strong interdisciplinary collaboration between material science (patterning and assembly of nanostructures) and mechanical engineering (damping and stiffness increase in composites). The project will contribute to the training of 1 Ph.D student and several undergraduate students (under the Undergraduate Research Projects - URP Program) at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.