Carbon nanotube/aluminium composites with uniform dispersion

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are attracting much interest as fibrous materials for reinforcing metal matrix composites due to their remarkable properties such as very high strength, elastic modulus, flexibility and high aspect ratios. However, due to the intricate entanglements of long and fine CNTs and resulting aggregation, disentanglement and uniform dispersion of CNTs in aluminium (At) matrices have been found quite difficult. In addition, the poor wetting property of carbon for At has been a great obstacle to forming composites. On a totally new principle, we succeeded in producing nano-scale composites in which carbon nanotubes were uniformly dispersed in A] matrices. We named this method Nano-Scale Dispersion (NSD) method, which can also be employed to disperse various fillers such as whiskers, ceramic fibres, and powders in metal matrices as well as Al. The composites obtained were found to be highly reinforced and not to melt at a temperature far above the melting point of Al. Here we report the procedure of their fabrication and mechanical properties.