'Nanostitching' could strengthen airplane skins, more

March 4, 2009 by Elizabeth Thomson
'Nanostitching' could strengthen airplane skins, more

Enlarge

Schematic showing carbon nanotubes bridging the gap between plies of an advanced composite. Graphic courtesy / Wardle lab, MIT

MIT engineers are using carbon nanotubes only billionths of a meter thick to stitch together aerospace materials in work that could make airplane skins and other products some 10 times stronger at a nominal increase in cost.

Moreover, advanced composites reinforced with nanotubes are also more than one million times more electrically conductive than their counterparts without nanotubes, meaning aircraft built with such materials would have greater protection against damage from lightning, said Brian L. Wardle, the Charles Stark Draper Assistant Professor in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Wardle is lead author of a theoretical paper on the new nanotube-reinforced composites that will appear in the Journal of Composite Materials (http://jcm.sagepub … sagepub.com/). He also described the work as keynote speaker at a Society of Plastics Engineers conference this week.

The advanced materials currently used for many aerospace applications are composed of layers, or plies, of carbon fibers that in turn are held together with a polymer glue. But that glue can crack and otherwise result in the carbon-fiber plies coming apart. As a result, engineers have explored a variety of ways to reinforce the interface between the layers by stitching, braiding, weaving or pinning them together.

All of these processes, however, are problematic because the relatively large stitches or pins penetrate and damage the carbon-fiber plies themselves. "And those fiber plies are what make composites so strong," Wardle said.

So Wardle wondered whether it would make sense to reinforce the plies in advanced composites with nanotubes aligned perpendicular to the carbon-fiber plies. Using computer models of how such a material would fracture, "we convinced ourselves that reinforcing with nanotubes should work far better than all other approaches," Wardle said. His team went on to develop processing techniques for creating the nanotubes and for incorporating them into existing aerospace composites, work that was published last year in two separate journals.

How does nanostitching work? The polymer glue between two carbon-fiber layers is heated, becoming more liquid-like. Billions of nanotubes positioned perpendicular to each carbon-fiber layer are then sucked up into the glue on both sides of each layer. Because the nanotubes are 1000 times smaller than the carbon fibers, they don't detrimentally affect the much larger carbon fibers, but instead fill the spaces around them, stitching the layers together.

"So we're putting the strongest fibers known to humankind [the nanotubes] in the place where the composite is weakest, and where they're needed most," Wardle said. He noted that these dramatic improvements can be achieved with nanotubes comprising less than one percent of the mass of the overall composite. In addition, he said, the nanotubes should add only a few percent to the cost of the composite, "while providing substantial improvements in bulk multifunctional properties."

Source: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

4.8 /5 (9 votes)  

Filter


Move the slider to adjust rank threshold, so that you can hide some of the comments.


Display comments: newest first

Nevertheless
Mar 04, 2009

Rank: not rated yet
But how long from lab to fab and employment?
NOM
Mar 05, 2009

Rank: 5 / 5 (1)
More of Neil Farbstein's lies and false claims.
Rank 4.8 /5 (9 votes)
Relevant PhysicsForums posts
  • polymer nanocomposites
    createdFeb 10, 2012
  • Corrosion Tests on Magnesium
    createdFeb 09, 2012
  • polyethylene copper nanocomposite
    createdFeb 09, 2012
  • Output of xrd analysis
    createdFeb 08, 2012
  • Transport phenomena problem based on problems 18.B11 and 19B.6 from Bird, stewart, lw
    createdFeb 06, 2012
  • Help with material selection - Car Piston
    createdFeb 05, 2012
  • More from Physics Forums - Materials & Chemical Engineering

More news stories

New kind of solar cell could capture significantly more energy than current cells

New solar cells could increase the maximum efficiency of solar panels by over 25%, according to scientists from the University of Cambridge.

Nanotechnology / Nanophysics

created Feb 08, 2012 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (12) | comments 14 | with audio podcast

Nanoshell whispering galleries improve thin solar panels

Visitors to Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol Building may have experienced a curious acoustic feature that allows a person to whisper softly at one side of the cavernous, half-domed room and for another on ...

Nanotechnology / Nanomaterials

created Feb 07, 2012 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (6) | comments 6 | with audio podcast

'Dark plasmons' transmit energy

Microscopic channels of gold nanoparticles have the ability to transmit electromagnetic energy that starts as light and propagates via "dark plasmons," according to researchers at Rice University.

Nanotechnology / Nanophysics

created Feb 09, 2012 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (9) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Revealing how a battery material works

Since its discovery 15 years ago, lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) has become one of the most promising materials for rechargeable batteries because of its stability, durability, safety and ability to deliver ...

Nanotechnology / Nanomaterials

created Feb 08, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (5) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Harnessing plasmonics, engineers weld nanowires with light

At the nano level, researchers at Stanford have discovered a new way to weld together meshes of tiny wires. Their work could lead to exciting new electronics and solar applications. To succeed, they called ...

Nanotechnology / Nanophysics

created Feb 06, 2012 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (11) | comments 1 | with audio podcast


Google might launch Drive for cloud storage soon

(PhysOrg.com) -- Google's next big move, according to the Wall Street Journal, is a cloud storage service called Drive. Hardly first to the plate, Google is simply catching up to introducing its cloud reposi ...

Latin America mining boom clashes with conservation

Latin America is experiencing a mining boom as prices rise fuelled by a hike in global demand, but the region is also being hit by a wave of violent protests, strikes and rallies by environmentalists.

Love a click away in Indonesia's Twitter Republic

He was a geeky kid from Yogyakarta, she a glamorous city girl in Jakarta. In a country with one of the world's most vibrant social networking scenes they fell in love on Twitter.

Europeans protest controversial Internet pact

Tens of thousands of people marched in protests in more than a dozen European cities Saturday against a controversial anti-online piracy pact that critics say could curtail Internet freedom.

Walney offshore wind farm is world's biggest (for now)

(PhysOrg.com) -- The Walney wind farm on the Irish Sea--characterized by high tides, waves and windy weather--officially opened this week. The farm is treated in the press as a very big deal as the Walney ...

Navy to begin tests on electromagnetic railgun prototype launcher

The Office of Naval Research (ONR)'s Electromagnetic (EM) Railgun program will take an important step forward in the coming weeks when the first industry railgun prototype launcher is tested at a facility ...