Effect of Carbon Nanotubes on Mechanical Properties

A new type of low cost, environmentally friendly wood-plastic composites (WPC) 12 containing carbon nanotubes(CNT)of low content 0%, 0.05wt%, 0.1wt% and 0.15wt%, wood fibers 13 of 14wt% and polymer PES of 86wt% was manufactured by the selective laser sintering (SLS) 14 approach of 3D printing. The experimental results showed that the incorporating of CNTs could 15 obviously increase the mechanical properties of the wood/PES composites material. The tensile 16 strength, bending strength and elasticity modulus were 76.3%, 227.9% and 128.7% higher with 17 0.1wt% CNTs than without CNTs. And the mechanical properties of specimens firstly increased 18 and then decreased with the increasing contents of CNTs. The SEM results of the specimens’ 19 fracture morphology indicated that the preferable bonding interfaces between wood flour grains 20 and PES grains were achieved by adding CNTs to the composites. There are two reasons to explain 21 why the composites possessed the superior mechanical properties: CNTs could facilitate the laser 22 sintering process of wood plastic composites due to their thermal conductivities; also, CNTs could 23 directly reinforce the WPC composites as reinforcement. 24