Damping characterization of carbon nanotube thin films

This paper investigates the potential of exploiting interfacial sliding interactions in carbon nanotube thin films for structural damping applications. Carbon nanotubes, due to their huge effective interfacial area, may provide an unprecedented opportunity to dramatically improve damping properties with minimal weight penalty. Three different mechanisms for interfacial friction damping in nanotube films were identified in this paper. These include: 1) Energy dissipation due to inter-tube interactions, 2) Energy dissipation due to nanotube-polymer interactions and 3) Energy dissipation due to nanotube and encapsulated nanowire interactions. These damping mechanisms are investigated using computational techniques (such as molecular dynamics) as well as experimentation (viscoelastic shear, bending tests). The results indicate that over 15-fold increase in the material loss factor for an epoxy thin film can be achieved by the use of carbon nanotube fillers.