Effect of carbon nanofibers on tensile and compressive characteristics of hollow particle filled composites

The effect of presence of carbon nanofibers on the tensile and compressive properties of hollow particle filled composites is studied. Such composites, called syntactic foams, are known to have high specific modulus and low moisture absorption capabilities and are finding applications as core materials in aerospace and marine sandwich structures. The results of this study show that addition of 0.25 wt.% carbon nanofibers results in improvement in tensile modulus and strength compared to similar syntactic foam compositions that did not contain nanofibers. Compressive modulus decreased and strength remained largely unchanged for most compositions. Tensile and compressive failure features are analyzed using scanning electron microscopy.