Nanocomposites and Hierarchical Nanocomposites Development at Hawaii Nanotechnology Laboratory

This paper presents activities related to the development of nanocomposites and hierarchical nanocomposites; at the Hawaii Nanotechnology Laboratory of the Department of Mechanical Engineering of the University of Hawaii at Manoa. On nanocomposites, developments on toughening of polymeric materials employing nanoparticles and carbon nanotubes are reported. On hierarchical nanocomposites, first, mechanical properties improvements for continuous fiber ceramic composites using nanoparticles are discussed. Second, a multifunctional micro-brush using carbon nanotubes is discussed. Third, the structure of a micro-foam using carbon nanotubes is explained. Finally, the multifunctional properties improvement of a novel three-dimensional hierarchical nanocomposite employing carbon nanotubes is discussed. In closing, the effect of chirality of single-walled nanotubes on their thermomechanical properties evaluated analytically using asymptotic homogenization method and numerically employing finite element method will be explained, and analytical closed form solutions for matrix filled nanotube nanocomposites, also verified numerically, assuming generally cylindrical orthotropic properties will be reported.