Journal
COMPOSITES SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Volume 92, Issue -, Pages 16-26Publisher
ELSEVIER SCI LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.compscitech.2013.11.018
Keywords
Polymer-matrix composites (PMCs); Electrical properties; Deformation; Modelling
Categories
Funding
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [51003063, 51273117, 51121001]
- special funds for Major State Basic Research Projects of China [2011CB606006]
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Conductive network morphology and interfacial interaction play important roles in determining resistivity-strain (rho-epsilon) sensing behavior of conductive polymer composites (CPCs). In this work, thermoplastic elastomer blends consisting of poly(styrene-butadiene-styrene) block polymer (SBS) and thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) were fabricated via different melt processing procedures, which could tune the above two issues simultaneously by selectively localizing multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) in SBS, TPU and both in SBS and TPU, respectively. It is observed that the composite fibers with selectively localized MWCNTs show distinct different rho-epsilon sensing behavior. Work of adhesion calculation suggests stronger interfacial interaction between MWCNTs and SBS, however, wetting coefficient calculation indicates slightly better wetting of MWCNTs with TPU. Because of such stronger interaction and poorer dispersion, the composite fiber with MWCNTs distributed in SBS exhibits higher rho-epsilon sensitivity than its counterpart with MWCNTs distributed in TPU, and with MWCNTs distributed in both phases, the rho-epsilon sensitivity lies in between. Moreover, the rho-epsilon sensing behavior was fitted with a model based on tunneling theory by Simmons. It is suggested that the change in tunneling distance and the number of conductive pathways could be accelerated significantly under strong interfacial interaction. This study could offer a new pathway and provide a guideline for the preparation of high-performance CPC resistivity-strain sensors with tunable sensitivity. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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