Three-phase textile nanocomposites: significant improvements in strength, toughness and ductility

It is well established that in-plane tensile properties of unidirectional microfiber-reinforced composites are not significantly influenced by addition of carbon nanotubes to the matrix. This is because the principal effect of the nanotubes is to enhance the matrix dominated (out-of-plane) properties. Here we report that the above situation changes when nanotubes are incorporated into woven-fabric (textile) composites. We report up to 200% increase in strain-to-break and 180% increase in toughness under in-plane tensile load with approximately 0.05% weight of nanotube additives. We attribute this effect to the geometrical arrangement of the micro-fibers and the critical role of the pure-matrix-block in textile composites.