Performance enhancement of epoxy based sandwich composites using multiwalled carbon nanotubes for the application of sockets in trans-femoral amputees

A socket plays a vital role in giving the comfort to the amputees. However, the accumulation of heat inside the socket and its weight led to increase their metabolic cost. Hence, an attempt was made to increase the performance of the epoxy based sandwich composites to be used for the socket by reinforcing multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT), which was varied from 0.1 to 0.5 wt%. It was homogeneously dispersed in epoxy to obtain the desired properties, where the enhancement of thermal conductivity, compressive strength and modulus of epoxy was observed to be 76.7%, 62.6% and 20.2%, respectively at 0.3 wt% of MWCNT concentration beyond which the mechanical properties were found to be decreased. Hence, the epoxy, E-glass plain fabric, 2-10 layers of stockinet and 0.3 wt% of MWCNT were used to prepare the sandwich composites. The flexural strength and thermal conductivity of 0.3 wt% of MWCNT reinforced sandwich composites were found to be improved by 11.38 +/- 1.5% and 29.8 +/- 1.3% for the 4-10 layers and up to 10 layers of stockinet, respectively compared to unreinforced sandwich composites, which helped to reduce the weight of the socket and decrease the heat accumulation inside the socket. Thus, it is suggested to be explored for the application of socket in trans-femoral amputees to increase their comfort level by decreasing the metabolic cost. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.