Recently, aluminum has been widely used in various industries including aerospace, mechanical and wire cable industries, for its good mechanical properties and engineering properties.
Aluminum used in the wire cable industry has relatively low density, low melting point and good corrosion resistance compared to other metallic materials such as copper, steel, etc. However, it has worse mechanical properties.
It is also possible to increase the mechanical properties of aluminum by adding various alloying elements. However, in pure aluminum (more than 99.5%), mixed elements such as Fe, Si, Cu, etc. bring several negative effects. Therefore, it is important to investigate and introduce new ways to improve the mechanical properties of pure aluminum.
Carbon nanotubes have been widely used as reinforcement material for composites because of their mechanical, physicochemical and electrical properties. From the mechanical point of view, the combination of sp2 hybridization mode of carbon nanotubes is one of the very strong chemical bonds. Therefore, carbon nanotubes with ideal structure have very good mechanical properties.
Hence, addition of carbon nanotubes, an ideal reinforced material for composites, can be the most suitable method for achieving grain refinement of the matrix and enhancing the mechanical properties.
Jon Song Won, a researcher at the Faculty of Materials Science and Technology, has investigated the effect of carbon nanotubes on the properties of aluminum-carbon nanotube composites fabricated by the melting method.
He has found that the tensile strength, elongation, bending number and hardness are all high when the carbon nanotube content is 0.3%.
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