Micro-structural Evolutions of Polyimide Composite Films with Graphenes

Polyimide/Carbon Nanotube Composite Films

Low color, space environmentally durable polymeric films with sufficient electrical conductivity to mitigate electrostatic charge (ESC) build-up have potential applications on large, deployable, ultra-light weight Gossamer spacecraft as thin film membranes on antennas, solar sails, thermal/optical coatings, multi-layer insulation blankets, etc.. The challenge has been to develop a method to imp...

Structural Integrity of Composite Laminates with Embedded Micro- sensors

The study of the mechanical interaction among the host, interface, and a device embedded within a laminated composite is important. Embedding micro-sensors in composite laminates produces material discontinuity around the inclusions. This in turn produces stress concentrations at or near the inclusions. Both 2D plane strain and 3D FEM models are developed to analyze the stress/strain state surr...

Novel Thermoplastic Polyimide Composite Materials

Plasma assisted surface modification of Fe-polyimide composite films for hydrophobic applications

Considering the wide range of applications of metal–polymer composites, composite of Fe-polyimide has been obtained by plasma sputtering method, also polyimide films were treated with plasma. Comparative study of surface modification of the composite film and the polyimide film due to Fe doping and plasma treatment have been studied, using the contact angle measurement, scanning electron micros...

Enhanced thermal conductivity of polyimide films via a hybrid of micro- and nano-sized boron nitride.

A new thermally conductive polyimide composite film has been developed. It is based on a dispersion of different particle sizes of boron nitride (BN) in a polyimide (PI) precursor, polyamic acid (PAA). Subsequently, thermal imidization of PAA at 350 degrees C produced the corresponding polyimide composites. 3-Mercaptopropionic acid was used as the surfactant to modify the BN surface for the dis...