Investigation of agglomeration and dispersion of reinforcement on the viscoelastic properties of CNT reinforced polymeric composites

In this research, the effect of agglomeration and dispersion of the Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) on the viscoelastic properties of CNT-reinforced polymeric nanocomposites is investigated, parametrically. The effective properties of the nanocomposite are obtained by Mori-Tanaka micromechanical approach, assuming completely random oriented CNTs. Considering spherical shaped inclusions for CNTs agglomerated region, two parameters are presented and applied to Mori-Tanaka micromechanical method to model the agglomeration and dispersion of the CNTs. The polymeric matrix is assumed to be viscoelastic. The viscoelastic properties of polymer matrix are simulated by standard linear solid model with three structural parameters. Due to time-dependency of constitutive equation of the matrix, direct using of the micromechanical method is not possible. Hence, the constitutive equations of the matrix are transferred to the Laplace domain and algebraic form the mentioned equations are inserted to the Mori-Tanaka relations. To verify the model, predicted results of that are compared with available experimental data for CNT reinforced polymeric nanocomposites. Investigation of agglomeration parameters shows that the overall properties of the composite can be improved by decreasing agglomeration of the CNTs.