Smart Materials and Structures Based on Carbon Nanotube Composites

Since the first discovery of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) in 1991, CNTs have generated enormous research activities in many areas of science and engineering due to their combined exceptional mechanical, thermal and electronic properties. These properties make nanotubes ideal, not only for a wide range of applications but also as a test-bed for fundamental scientific studies (Baughman et al., 2002). They can be described as a graphite sheet rolled up into a nanoscale tube. Two structural forms of CNTs exist: single-walled (SWCNTs) and multi-walled (MWCNTs) nanotubes. CNT lengths can be as short as a few hundred nanometers or as long as several micrometers. SWCNT have diameters between 1 and 10 nm and normally capped ends. In contrast, MWCNT diameters range from 5 to a few hundred nanometers because their structure consists of many concentric cylinders held together by van der Waals forces. CNTs are synthesized in a variety of ways, such as arc discharge, laser ablation, high pressure carbon monoxide (HiPCO), and chemical vapor deposition (CVD) (Dresselhaus, 1997). CNTs exhibit excellent mechanical, electrical, thermal and magnetic properties. The exact magnitudes of these properties depend on the diameter and chirality of the nanotubes and whether their structure is singleor multi-walled. Fig. 1 shows a segment of a single graphene plane that can be transformed into a carbon nanotube by rolling up into a cylinder. To describe this structure, a chiral vector is defined as OA = na1 + ma2, where a1 and a2 are unit vectors for the hexagonal lattice of the graphene sheet, n and m are integers, along with a chiral angle θ, which is the angle of the chiral vector with respect to the x direction. Using this (n, m) scheme, the three types of nanotubes are characterized. If n = m, the nanotubes are called ‘‘armchair”. If m = 0, the nanotubes are called ‘‘zigzag”. Otherwise, they are called ‘‘chiral”. The chirality of nanotubes has significant impact on their transport properties, particularly the electronic properties. For a given (n, m) nanotube, if (2n + m) is a multiple of 3, then the nanotube is metallic, otherwise the nanotube is a semiconductor. Each MWCNT contains a multi-layer of graphene, and each layer can have different chiralities, so the prediction of its physical properties is more complicated than that of SWCNT (Jin & Yuan, 2003).