Excellent mechanical properties of long multiwalled carbon nanotube bridged Kevlar fabric

The major causes of failure of Kevlar reinforced composites are inter-yarn slippage and poor adhesion with polymer. Herein, long length multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) are used as a secondary reinforcement to enhance the interfacial interaction between Kevlar and epoxy through bridging action. Different wt. % of MWCNT based Kevlar reinforced hybrid composite tape and their laminar composites have been prepared and their quasi-static unidirectional and dynamic mechanical properties are studied. It is found that the maximum tensile strength, Young's modulus and storage modulus of optimized i.e. 0.3 wt % of MWCNTs in epoxy resin (0.3KE) composite showed an overall improvement of similar to 81%, similar to 56% and similar to 139%, respectively over base line composite tape (KE). The flexural modulus, Young's modulus and storage modulus of 0.3 wt % multi-scaled laminar composite (KEC) showed an overall improvement of similar to 33%, similar to 50%, and similar to 233%, respectively over KE. The effects of MWCNTs on interfacial properties of multi-scaled composite tapes are correlated by Raman spectral shift, FTIR and XRD analysis. Further the bridging actions of long length MWCNTs are visualized by using high resolution transmission electron microscopy. (c) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.