The integration of carbon nanotubes (CNT) into composite materials has revolutionized various high-performance industries, including aerospace, marine, and defence, due to their exceptional mechanical, thermal, and electrical properties. The critical nature of these applications demands precise control over the manufacturing process to ensure the optimal performance of the CNT-reinforced composites. This study employs the Taguchi approach to systematically investigate and determine the optimal proportion of CNT volume fraction, fiber volume fraction, and stacking sequence in composite materials to achieve the optimal fundamental frequency.
The Taguchi method, known for its efficiency in optimizing design parameters with a minimal number of experiments, enables the identification of the most influential factors and their optimal levels for enhancing material properties. Our findings demonstrate that the proper arrangement and proportioning of these components significantly improve the composite's strength, durability, and overall performance. The optimized parameters derived from this study provide a robust framework for manufacturing superior CNT-reinforced composites, advancing their application in critical sectors where performance and reliability are paramount.
To ascertain the material properties of the required combination of glass fiber and CNT, Ansys Material Designer was used. A unidirectional fiber in a hexagonal lattice was considered for the material, where the matrix consisted of CNT reinforcement and epoxy resin. To conduct the vibrational analysis of the study, Ansys software was used to model the rectangular composite plate and find the frequencies of the first 6 modes of each variation of factors. The rectangular plate was modeled in Ansys ACP and the frequency analysis was conducted on Ansys Modal. The plate was subjected to clamped boundary conditions and different volume fractions of glass fiber, CNT reinforcement and stacking sequence for the analysis.
The results of this study show that out of the three factors considered, the fiber volume fraction is the most influential and the stacking sequence is the next most influential. This gives us an idea on the considerations needed while manufacturing composite plates and most importantly, the applications which they can and cannot be used for due to their fundamental frequency.
Keywords: CNT, Glass fiber, Taguchi method, fundamental frequency, composite