Processing and mechanical characterization of carbon nanotube reinforced syntactic foams

Carbon nanotube reinforced, syntactic foams are processed and evaluated for compressive and dynamic mechanical properties. Vertically aligned nanotubes were first grown on the microballoons surface and added into the epoxy system. The weight percent of the nanotubes were varied from 0% to 0.8%. The properties of carbon nanotube reinforced syntactic foams are compared with neat syntactic foams that did not contain nanotubes. Results show improvement in compressive modulus and damping coefficient values by 35%–41% and 10%–104%, respectively. Compressive strength, elastic modulus and glass transition temperature remained largely unchanged for most compositions.