Letter abstract
Nature Nanotechnology 2, 417 - 421 (2006)
Published online: 1 July 2007 | doi:10.1038/nnano.2007.186
Subject Categories: Carbon nanotubes and fullerenes | Structural properties
Fatigue resistance of aligned carbon nanotube arrays under cyclic compression
J. Suhr1,5, P. Victor2,5, L. Ci2, S. Sreekala3, X. Zhang4, O. Nalamasu2 & P. M. Ajayan2
Abstract
Structural components subject to cyclic stress can succumb to fatigue, causing them to fail at stress levels much lower than if they were under static mechanical loading1. However, despite extensive research into the mechanical properties of carbon nanotube structures2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 for more than a decade, data on the fatigue behaviour of such devices have never been reported. We show that under repeated high compressive strains, long, vertically aligned multiwalled nanotubes exhibit viscoelastic behaviour similar to that observed in soft-tissue membranes10, 11. Under compressive cyclic loading, the mechanical response of the nanotube arrays shows preconditioning, characteristic viscoelasticity-induced hysteresis, nonlinear elasticity and stress relaxation, and large deformations. Furthermore, no fatigue failure is observed at high strain amplitudes up to half a million cycles. This combination of soft-tissue-like behaviour and outstanding fatigue resistance suggests that properly engineered nanotube structures could mimic artificial tissues, and that their good electrical conductivity could lead to their use as compliant electrical contacts in a variety of applications.
- Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Nevada, Reno, Nevada 89557, USA
- Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York 12180, USA
- Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08540, USA
- School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200030, China
- These authors contributed equally to this work.
Correspondence to: J. Suhr1,5 e-mail: suhrjh@unr.edu
Correspondence to: P. M. Ajayan2 e-mail: ajayan@rpi.edu
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