Tribological behavior of the carbon fiber-reinforced epoxy resin matrix composite with orderly arranged carbon nanotubes

In order to improve the wear resistance of carbon fiber (CF)-reinforced epoxy (EP) matrix composite (CF/EP), this study incorporated carbon nanotubes (CNTs) into the CF/EP composite through the chemical grafting method (C-CNTs/CF/EP). The results showed that the orderly arranged CNTs facilitated the stress transfer from the EP matrix to CF, resulting in a 51.60 % increase in tensile modulus, a 31.21 % increase in strength, a 1.25Shore increase in hardness, a 4.43% decrease in coefficient of friction, and a 34.44% decrease in wear rate of the CF/EP composite. In addition, under different friction conditions, including time, load, and reciprocating frequency, the variations in the characteristics and wear forms of the friction surface dominated the changes in the tribological behavior of the C-CNTs/CF/EP composite.