title: Dynamic Self-Stiffening and Structural Evolutions of Polyacrylonitrile/Carbon Nanotube Nanocomposites.
abstract: The self-stiffening under external dynamic strain has been observed for some artificial materials, especially for nanocomposites. However, few systematic studies have been carried out on their structural evolutions, and the effect of the types of nanofillers was unclear. In this study, we used a semicrystalline polymer, polyacrylonitrile (PAN), and various types of carbon nanomaterials including C60, carbon nanotube (CNT), and graphene oxide (GO). An external uniaxial dynamic strain at small amplitude of 0.2% was applied on the prepared nanocomposite films. It was observed that PAN/CNT exhibited significant self-stiffening behavior, whereas PAN/GO showed no response. Systematic characterizations were performed to determine the structural evolutions of PAN/CNT film during dynamic strain testing, and it was found that the external dynamic strain not only induced the crystallization of PAN chains but also aligned CNT along the strain direction.
authors.affiliation: National Engineering Laboratory for Carbon Fiber Technology, Institute of Coal Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences , 27 Taoyuan South Road, Taiyuan 030001, China.|University of Chinese Academy of Sciences , 19 Yuquan Road, Beijing 100049, China.
authors.forename: Yinhui
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: National Engineering Laboratory for Carbon Fiber Technology, Institute of Coal Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences , 27 Taoyuan South Road, Taiyuan 030001, China.
authors.forename: Pucha
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: National Engineering Laboratory for Carbon Fiber Technology, Institute of Coal Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences , 27 Taoyuan South Road, Taiyuan 030001, China.
authors.forename: Feng
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: An
authors.affiliation: National Engineering Laboratory for Carbon Fiber Technology, Institute of Coal Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences , 27 Taoyuan South Road, Taiyuan 030001, China.
authors.forename: Yaodong
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4386-838X
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: National Engineering Laboratory for Carbon Fiber Technology, Institute of Coal Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences , 27 Taoyuan South Road, Taiyuan 030001, China.
authors.forename: Chunxiang
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Lu
keywords: crystallization; dynamic strain; nanocomposite; polyacrylonitrile; self-stiffening