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Description
Recently, the use of zinc oxide (ZnO) nanowires as an interphase in composite materials has been demonstrated to increase the interfacial shear strength between carbon fiber and an epoxy matrix. In this research work, the strong adhesion between ZnO and carbon fiber is investigated to elucidate the interactions at the interface that result in high interfacial strength. First, molecular dynamics (MD) simulations are performed to calculate the adhesive energy between bare carbon and ZnO. Since the carbon fiber surface has oxygen functional groups, these were modeled and MD simulations showed the preference of ketones to strongly interact with ZnO, however, this was not observed in the case of hydroxyls and carboxylic acid. It was also found that the ketone molecules ability to change orientation facilitated the interactions with the ZnO surface. Experimentally, the atomic force microscope (AFM) was used to measure the adhesive energy between ZnO and carbon through a liftoff test by employing highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) substrate and a ZnO covered AFM tip. Oxygen functionalization of the HOPG surface shows the increase of adhesive energy. Additionally, the surface of ZnO was modified to hold a negative charge, which demonstrated an increase in the adhesive energy. This increase in adhesion resulted from increased induction forces given the relatively high polarizability of HOPG and the preservation of the charge on ZnO surface. It was found that the additional negative charge can be preserved on the ZnO surface because there is an energy barrier since carbon and ZnO form a Schottky contact. Other materials with the same ionic properties of ZnO but with higher polarizability also demonstrated good adhesion to carbon. This result substantiates that their induced interaction can be facilitated not only by the polarizability of carbon but by any of the materials at the interface. The versatility to modify the magnitude of the induced interaction between carbon and an ionic material provides a new route to create interfaces with controlled interfacial strength.
ContributorsGalan Vera, Magdian Ulises (Author) / Sodano, Henry A (Thesis advisor) / Jiang, Hanqing (Committee member) / Solanki, Kiran (Committee member) / Oswald, Jay (Committee member) / Speyer, Gil (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
The field of Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) has grown significantly over the past few years due to safety and performance enhancing benefits as well as potential life saving capabilities offered by technology. Current advances in SHM systems have lead to a variety of techniques capable of identifying damage. However, few strategies exist for using this information to quickly react to environmental or material conditions needed to repair or protect the system. Rather, current systems simply relay this information to a central processor or human operator who then decides on a course of action, such as altering the mission or scheduling a repair operation. Biological systems exhibit many advanced sensory and healing traits that can be applied to the design of material systems. For instance, bones are the major structural component in vertebrates; however, unlike modern structural materials, bones have many properties that make it effective for arresting the development and propagation of cracks and subsequent healing of the damaged region. Mimicking biological materials, an autonomous material system was developed that uses Shape Memory Polymers (SMPs) with an embedded fiber optic network. This thesis researches a novel system that uses SMPs and employs an optical fiber network as both a damage detection sensor and a network to deliver stimulus to the damage site, initiating active toughening and healing algorithms. In the presence of damage, the fiber optic fractures, which allowed a high power laser diode to deposit a controlled level of thermal energy at the damage site, locally reducing the modulus and blunting the crack tip. The shape memory polymer not only provided a sharp glass transition, but also allowed for the application of an programmed global pre-strain, which under thermal loads induced the shape memory effect to close the crack and adequately heal the polymer to its designed operational conditions recovering full strength. It will be shown that the material can be significantly toughened and that control algorithms combined with the shape memory properties can further increase the toughening and healing effect. The entire system will be able to effectively sense damage, defend its propagation by actively toughening, and subsequently heal the structure, autonomously in a real time operational environment.
ContributorsGarcia, Michael (Author) / Sodano, Henry A (Thesis advisor) / Jiang, Hanqing (Committee member) / Lin, Yirong (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2010