Complex Material Analysis
Carbon nanotube (CNT) fibers (yarns) are microscopic assemblies of carbon nanotubes in the form of continuous fibers that have significant potential for technological applications. Levering his knowledge in structures, Dr. Pirmoz has investigated the micro-structure of CNT Fibers to characterize their mechanical and electromechanical behavior and move towards the way that can advance us to development of new high-performance structural materials. Through careful observation of the Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) images of several tested samples, he realized that the structure of a CNT fiber can be idealized as hierarchical concept. Based on this concept he developed a multiscale finite element (FE) model that discretizes the fiber in three levels: (i) nanoscale model of bundles comprising CNTs, (ii) mesoscale model of CNT fibrillars formed by bundles, (iii) microscale model of the fiber comprising twisted CNT fibrillars. The analysis results showed a reasonable agreement with the test results and confirmed the accuracy of the proposed analysis method. Part of this investigation is published in Mechanics of Materials journal.