With potential applications ranging from molecular electronics and field-emission displays to nanocomposites, carbon nanotubes offer tremendous opportunity in the development of nanotechnologies.  At the nanoscale, this unique form of carbon shows extraordinary mechanical and physical properties, with predicted elastic moduli of about 1 TPa (1000 GPa), strengths in the range of 30 GPa, and exceptional resilience, showing large, nonlinear deformation before fracture.  As scientists and engineers seek to make practical materials and devices from nanostructures, a basic understanding of the nanoscale behavior across length scales from the atomistic level to the macroscopic level and how nanostructures interact with each other is required. 

To facilitate the engineering application of nanostructured materials, a fundamental knowledge of the process/structure/property relationships is required to enable the nanoscale design of multi-functional materials.  The multi-disciplinary research team assembled for this project taking an integrated approach to the synthesis, characterization and modeling of nanostructures based on aligned arrays of carbon nanotubes.  The expertise of the research team covers areas of nanomaterial synthesis (Zhifeng Ren, Boston College), nanoscale mechanical characterization (Rod Ruoff, Northwestern University), nanocomposites processing and characterization (Erik Thostenson - University of Delaware) and computational nanomechanics and design optimization (Tsu-Wei Chou - University of Delaware). 

A model system of aligned carbon nanotubes in a 1-D or 2-D array grown via chemical vapor deposition forms a basis for our modeling and characterization work.  The proposed research will (1) develop and improve techniques for synthesis of aligned nanotubes with controlled structure, nanotube spacing, and interface structure/chemistry, (2) develop process models to elucidate the competing growth mechanisms for aligned carbon nanotubes and optimize processing parameters, (3) develop novel methods to quantify the interfacial properties, load transfer mechanisms and fracture behavior as a function of nanotube structure and interface chemistry, (4) implement atomistic computational modeling techniques for modeling of long-lived physical and mechanical phenomena in carbon nanotubes and establish linkages among atomistic, micro-scale and macro-scale modeling through a unified simulation and (5) combine modeling and experimental efforts to explore the development of novel three-dimensional scaffolds for nanoscale devices and composites.  It is expected that this team project will advance our fundamental understanding in manufacturing processes at the nanoscale, multi-scale, multi-phenomena theory and modeling and simulation at the nanoscale.  Development of fundamental process/structure/property models will enable the design of two- and three-dimensional nanoscale structures.

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