Vibration Characteristics of Multi-walled Carbon Nanotubes/epoxy Composites Beam

Composites are composed of matrix and reinforcement. Generally the matrix is a polymer material. Carbon nanotubes have excellent mechanical properties, electrical and thermal properties and can be used as a reinforcement. In this study, multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs)/epoxy specimens was prepared with different MWNTs wt% to explore the vibration characteristics of composites beam. Vibration characteristics including mode shapes and natural frequencies. We measured the Young's modulus, Poisson's ratio and density of the specimens, used as the parameters in finite element analysis to obtain the mode shape and natural frequency of cantilever composite beams. The experiment and simulation results showed that adding MWNTs had some influence on the resonant frequency. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd.