IU Indianapolis ScholarWorks :: Browsing by Author "Biswas, Pias Kumar"

Browsing by Author "Biswas, Pias Kumar"

Now showing 1 - 9 of 9

Carbon and cellulose based nanofillers reinforcement to strengthen carbon fiber-epoxy composites: Processing, characterizations, and applications
(Frontiers, 2023-01-10) Biswas, Pias Kumar; Omole, Oluwaseun; Peterson, Garrett; Cumbo, Eric; Agarwal, Mangilal; Dalir, Hamid; Mechanical Engineering, School of Engineering and Technology
Since the inception of carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) composites, different nanofillers have been investigated to strengthen their mechanical and physical properties. To date, the majority of research has focused on enhancing fiber/matrix interface characteristics and/or optimizing nanofiller dispersion within the matrix, both of which improve the performance of carbon fiber-epoxy composite structures. Nanofillers can be dispersed into the polymer matrix by different techniques or nanofillers are chemically bonded to fiber, polymer, or both via multiple reaction steps. However, a few studies were conducted showing the effects of different nanofillers on the performance of carbon fiber-epoxy composites. Here a critical study has been done to explore different carbon and cellulose-based nanofillers which are used to enhance the mechanical and physical properties of carbon fiber-epoxy composites. After giving a short history of carbon fiber production, the synthesis of carbon nanotubes (CNTs), graphene, cellulose-based nanofillers (cellulose nanocrystals and nanofibers), their dispersion in the polymer matrix, and chemical/physical bonding with the fiber or polymer have been extensively described here along with their processing techniques, characterizations, and applications in various fields.
DESIGN AND FABRICATION OF MULTI-FUNCTIONAL ENERGY STORAGE COMPOSITES INTEGRATING ULTRATHIN LITHIUM-ION BATTERY WITH ENHANCED ELECTRO-MECHANICAL PERFORMANCE
(EPFL Lausanne, Composite Construction Laboratory, 2022-06) Biswas, Pias Kumar; Jadhav, Mayur; Ananda Habarakada Liyanage, Asel; Dalir, Hamid; Agarwal, Mangilal
Exponential advancement in the automotive and aerospace industry promotes the need for Multifunctional Energy Storage Composites (MESCs) to minimize the dependence on fossil fuels and reduce structural weight. This study proposes and evaluates a multi-functional carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) composite with an embedded lithium-ion polymer battery, demonstrating a structural integrity concept. Here electrospun epoxy-multiwalled carbon nanotubes (epoxy-MWCNT) nanofibers were incorporated precisely on the uncured CFRP surface to enhance adequate interfacial bonding and adhesion between the layers after curing. The mechanical and physical properties of modified CFRP have been evidenced to possess higher mechanical strength than the traditional CFRP composite. Commercial ultra-thin lithium-ion battery with higher energy density has been uniquely integrated into the core of the CFRP composite structure. Comparison with conventional CFRP composite and electro-mechanical testing ensured that the electrochemical property of the embedded battery was preserved in loading/unloading conditions, and the mechanical strength of the composite structure was not compromised.
Electrospun Thermosetting Carbon Nanotube–Epoxy Nanofibers
(ACS, 2021-02) Aliahmad, Nojan; Biswas, Pias Kumar; Wable, Vidya; Hernandez, Iran; Siegel, Amanda; Dalir, Hamid; Agarwal, Mangilal; Mechanical and Energy Engineering, School of Engineering and Technology
This paper represents the process of fabrication and characterization of submicron carbon nanotube (CNT)–epoxy nanocomposite filaments through an electrospinning process. Electrospinning is one of the most versatile, inexpensive, and environmentally well-known techniques for producing continuous fibers from submicron diameter all the way to tens of nanometer diameter. Here, electrospinning of submicron epoxy filaments was made possible by partial curing of the epoxy by mixing the hardener and through a thermal treatment process without the need for adding any plasticizers or thermoplastic binders. This semicuring approach makes the epoxy solution viscous enough for the electrospinning process, that is, without any solidification or nonuniformity caused by the presence of the hardener inside the mixture. The filaments were spun using a CNT/epoxy solution with a viscosity of 65 p using 16 kV and a collector distance of 10 cm. The diameter of these filaments can be tuned as low as 100 nm with adjustment of electrospinning parameters. By incorporating a low amount of CNT into epoxy, better structural, electrical, and thermal stabilities were achieved. The CNT fibers have been aligned inside the epoxy filaments because of the presence of the electrostatic field during the electrospinning process. The modulus of the epoxy and CNT/epoxy filaments were found to be 3.24 and 4.84 GPa, respectively. The presence of the CNT can lead up to 49% improvement on modulus. Accordingly, using a commercially available epoxy suitable for industrial composite productions makes the developed filament suitable for many applications.
Engineering the electrospinning of MWCNTs/epoxy nanofiber scaffolds to enhance physical and mechanical properties of CFRPs
(Elsevier, 2021-09) Wable, Vidya; Biswas, Pias Kumar; Moheimani, Reza; Aliahmad, Nojan; Omole, Peter; Siegel, Amanda P.; Agarwal, Mangilal; Dalir, Hamid; Mechanical Engineering, School of Engineering and Technology
A cost-effective approach to improve the physical and mechanical properties of carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) prepreg composites, where electrospun multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs)/epoxy nanofibers were synthesized and incorporated in between the layers of conventional CFRP prepreg composite has been presented. MWCNT-aligned epoxy nanofibers were successfully produced by an optimized electrospinning process. Nanofibers were deposited directly onto prepreg layers to achieve improved adhesion and interfacial bonding, leading to added strength and improvements in other mechanical properties. Thus, interlaminar shear strength (ILSS) and fatigue performance at high-stress regimes increased by 29% and 27%, respectively. Barely visible impact damage (BVID) energy increased significantly by up to 45%. The thermal and electrical conductivities were also enhanced significantly due to the presence of the highly conductive MWCNT networks between the CFRP layers. The presented method was capable of uniformly depositing high contents of MWCNTs at interlaminar ply interface of prepregs to strengthen/enhance CFRP properties, which has not been previously shown to be possible due to high resin viscosity caused by randomly oriented MWCNTs in epoxy system.
Fabrication of Submicron Thermosetting Carbon Nanotube-Epoxy Fibers Using Electrospinning
(American Society for Composites, 2020-09-20) Aliahmad, Nojan; Wable, Vidya; Biswas, Pias Kumar; Hernadez, Iran; Dalir, Hamid; Agarwal, Mangilal
Recently epoxy-based nanocomposites are gaining tremendous attention in many structural applications such as those in aerospace, automotive and motorsports. This research represents a new approach to fabricate submicron thermoset epoxy filaments enhanced with carbon nanotubes (CNT), through optimized curing followed by an electrospinning process. The optimized curing process is based on the uniform mixing of CNT with epoxy, and partial curing of the CNT/epoxy mixture with the hardener through a thermal treatment without adding any plasticizers or thermoplastic binders. Later the fibers have been made by electrospinning of the semi-cured mixture. Fig 1 shows the fabrication process of the described filaments. The key goal is to make the thermosetting epoxy without adding any thermoplastic to keep the integrity and quality of the fibers. The diameters of these filaments can be tuned between 100 nm to 500nm. Further, the CNT structure has been aligned inside the filament structure by the presence of the electrostatic field during the electrospinning process results in better stability and smaller diameters for the fibers. The fabricated filaments show that adding a low amount of CNT in the epoxy structure, better structural, electrical and thermal stability, has been achieved.
Higher strength carbon fiber lithium-ion polymer battery embedded multifunctional composites for structural applications
(Wiley Online Library, 2022-03-17) Biswas, Pias Kumar; Liyanage, Asel Ananda Habarakada; Jadhav, Mayur; Agarwal, Mangilal; Dalir, Hamid
This study proposes and evaluates the structural integrity of a carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) composite containing encapsulated lithium-ion polymer (Li-Po) batteries. A comparison of various composite structures made of CFRP having the core of lithium-ion batteries is conducted. Electrospinning is globally recognized as a flexible and cost-effective method for generating continuous nanofilaments. In this study, epoxy-multiwalled carbon nanotubes (CNT/epoxy) were electrospun onto CFRP layers, which improved interfacial bonding and strong adhesion between the layers which ultimately worked as an effective packaging for Li-ion batteries. This composite structure showed enhanced mechanical strength compared to the standard CFRP laminate structure due to incorporating electrospun CNT/epoxy nanofibers in between the layers. An alternate method was proposed for comparison where CNT/epoxy was air sprayed onto the CFRP layers. CFRP structure containing airsprayed CNT/epoxy was found to be stronger than standard CFRP laminate structure, although not as strong as electrospun CNT/epoxy enhanced CFRP laminates. Finally, the design validation, manufacturing method, and electromechanical characterization of multifunctional energy storage composites (MESCs) were examined and compared. Electrochemical characterization showed that MESCs with electrospun CNT/epoxy nanofibers enhanced CFRP laminate under loading conditions had similar performance to the standard lithium-ion pouch cells without any loading. The mechanical robustness of the proposed CFRP composite structures enables their manufacturing as multifunctional energy-storage devices for electric vehicles and other structural applications.
Multi-nozzle electrospinning optimization of carbon nanotube/epoxy submicron filaments – A numerical study
(American Chemical Society, 2021-08-26) Liyanage, Asel Habarakada; Biswas, Pias Kumar; Cumbo, Eric; Siegel, Amanda P.; Agarwal, Mangilal; Dalir, Hamid
Electrospinning is the process of spinning a polymer melt or solution through a nozzle in the presence of a high-voltage electric field, which causes it to coalesce into a continuous filament. Diameter of the filament is anywhere from tens of nanometers to a few microns, depending on the materials being spun, viscosity, electric field, and other experimental conditions. This process has gained attention because of its versatility, low cost, and ease of processing for many polymers. Thermosetting reinforced epoxy is particularly challenging because of the variability in viscosity caused by temperature changes and induced by the electrospinning process itself. Nevertheless, our research group previously developed the fabrication and characterization of submicron carbon nanotube (CNT)–epoxy nanocomposite filaments through an electrospinning process via a single nozzle, horizontal spray process. In this study, electric fields and other parameters were simulated using COMSOL Multiphysics® software to understand the induced surface charges that cause the Taylor cone of the CNT-epoxy solution.. Optimization of the simulation results coupled with those of experiments enabled us to achieve stability and fabricate smaller but more uniform diameter fibers with enhanced structural, electrical, and thermal properties. The main challenge addressed in this paper is the use of the COMSOL models to understand the effect of different geometries on the electric field in the presence of multi-nozzle systems.
Synthesis of V2O5/Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes Integrated into Nanostructured Composites as Cathode Materials in High Performance Lithium-Ion Batteries
(MDPI, 2022) Aliahmad, Nojan; Biswas, Pias Kumar; Dalir, Hamid; Agarwal, Mangilal; Mechanical and Energy Engineering, School of Engineering and Technology
Vanadium pentoxide (V2O5)-anchored single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) composites have been developed through a simple sol–gel process, followed by hydrothermal treatment. The resulting material is suitable for use in flexible ultra-high capacity electrode applications for lithium-ion batteries. The unique combination of V2O5 with 0.2 wt.% of SWCNT offers a highly conductive three-dimensional network. This ultimately alleviates the low lithium-ion intercalation seen in V2O5 itself and facilitates vanadium redox reactions. The integration of SWCNTs into the layered structure of V2O5 leads to a high specific capacity of 390 mAhg−1 at 0.1 C between 1.8 to 3.8 V, which is close to the theoretical capacity of V2O5 (443 mAhg−1). In recent research, most of the V2O5 with carbonaceous materials shows higher specific capacity but limited cyclability and poor rate capability. In this work, good cyclability with only 0.3% per cycle degradation during 200 cycles and enhanced rate capability of 178 mAhg−1 at 10 C have been achieved. The excellent electrochemical kinetics during lithiation/delithiation is attributed to the chemical interaction of SWCNTs entrapped between layers of the V2O5 nanostructured network. Proper dispersion of SWCNTs into the V2O5 structure, and its resulting effects, have been validated by SEM, TEM, XPS, XRD, and electrical resistivity measurements. This innovative hybrid material offers a new direction for the large-scale production of high-performance cathode materials for advanced flexible and structural battery applications.
THE MASS PRODUCTION OF MWCNTS/EPOXY SCAFFOLDS USING LATERAL BELT-DRIVEN MULTI-NOZZLE ELECTROSPINNING SETUP TO ENHANCE PHYSICAL AND MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF CFRP
(EPFL Lausanne, Composite Construction Laboratory, 2022-06) Ananda Habarakada Liyanage, Asel; Biswas, Pias Kumar; Agarwal, Mangilal; Dalir, Hamid
Electrospinning is the process of ejecting a polymer melt or solution through a nozzle in the presence of a high-voltage electric field, which causes it to coalesce into a continuous filament with various shapes from a submicron to nanometer diameter. This process has gained vast attention because of its versatility, low cost, and ease of processing, leading to a massive demand for translating electrospinning experiments out of the laboratory into commercialized production. This manuscript represents an approach to mass-producing MWCNTs/Epoxy scaffolds using Lateral Belt Driven (LBD) multi-nozzle electrospinning technique to enhance CFRP's physical and mechanical properties. We mitigated the non-uniform electric field distribution challenges with the LBD approach, which helped obtain a single layer and welluniformed coverage of the electrospun MWCNTs/Epoxy scaffolds onto CFRP sheets. Interlaminar shear strength (ILSS) and fatigue performance under high-stress conditions improved by 29% and 27%, respectively. The energy of barely visible impact damage (BVID) improved by up to 45%.

Browsing by Author "Biswas, Pias Kumar"

Results Per Page

Sort Options