APPLICATIONS OF CARBON NANOTUBES IN AUTOMOBILES

TECHNICAL SEMINAR REPORT 2011-12

Submitted by

JAYAANANTH.K.G
REG. NO : 080111123020

in partial fulfillment for the award of the degree of

BACHELOR OF ENGINEERING
IN MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

SRI KRISHNA COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY Kuniamuthur, Coimbatore.

ANNA UNIVERSITY: COIMBATORE

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OCTOBER 2011

ANNA UNIVERSITY: COIMBATORE

BONAFIDE CERIFICATE

Certified that this technical seminar report APPLICATIONS OF CARBON NANOTUBES IN AUTOMOBILES is the bonafide work of JAYAANANTH.K.G (080111123020) carried out the technical seminar under my supervision.

Mr. Feros Khan Assistant professor Technical staff

Mr. R. Ramamoorthi Assistant professor Coordinator

Dr. A. Ramesh Head of the department Mechanical Engineering

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ABSTRACT OBJECTIVES CARBON NANOTUBES TYPES OF CARBON NANOTUBES MECHANICAL PROPERTIIES ELECTRICAL PROPERTIES THERMAL PROPERTIES APPLICATIONS OF CARBON NANOTUBES CNT APPLICATIONS IN AUTOMOBILES FASTER FLYWHEELS BETTER CAPACITORS WINDOWS AND WINDSCREENS CNT BRAKING APPLICATIONS FUEL TANKS PRESSURE GAUGE CNT IN AUTOMOBILES - CURRENT STATUS APPLICATION EXAMPLES OF CNT IN AUTOMOBILES ADVANTAGES REFERENCES

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ABSTRACT : Globally there is a craze for automobile sector. More and more people opt for travelling in their own vehicles. Maintenance of high fuel efficiency is the need of the hour. Besides, poor quality material of the vehicle body leads to extensive damage during a sudden crash or accident. These problems can be minimized by applying carbon nanotubes (CNT) in automobiles .CNT's have perfect arrangement of Carbon-carbon bonds with extremely high Youngs modulus. By using CNT in automobiles, the weight of the vehicle gets reduced which ultimately increase the fuel efficiency. Also the structure of the vehicle body gets strengthened by applying CNT in it. Some of the CNT applications in automobiles which are discussed in this topic are in flywheels, windows &windscreens, capacitors, fuel tanks, braking applications and pressure gauges.

OBJECTIVE : Introduction Types of Carbon Nanotubes Properties Applications of CNT in Automobiles Advantages

Carbon nanotubes Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are allotropes of carbon with a cylindrical nanostructure.In other words they are sheets of carbon rolled into a cylindical form. Nanotubes have been constructed from hexagonal rings of carbon with length-to-diameter ratio of up to 132,000,000:1, significantly larger than for any other material.Carbon nanotubes have one or more layers.These cylindrical carbon molecules have unusual properties, which are valuable for nanotechnology, electronics, optics and other fields of materials science and technology. In particular, owing to their extraordinary thermal conductivity and mechanical and electrical properties, carbon nanotubes may find applications as additives to various structural materials.

Nanotubes are members of the fullerene structural family, which also includes the spherical buckyballs, and the ends of a nanotube may be capped with a hemisphere of the buckyball structure and hence their structure resembles like pills or capsules.

Their name is derived from their long, hollow structure with the walls formed by one-atom-thick sheets of carbon, called graphene. These sheets are rolled at specific and discrete ("chiral") angles, and the combination of the rolling angle and radius decides the nanotube properties; for example, whether the individual nanotube shell is a metal or semiconductor. Nanotubes are categorized as single-walled nanotubes (SWNTs) and multi-walled nanotubes (MWNTs). Individual nanotubes naturally align themselves into "ropes" held together by van der Waals forces.

Applied quantum chemistry, specifically, orbital hybridization best describes chemical bonding in nanotubes. The chemical bonding of nanotubes is composed entirely of sp2 bonds, similar to those of graphite. These bonds, which are stronger than the sp3 bonds found in alkanes, provide nanotubules with their unique strength.It was invented by Sumio Lijima,a scientist of NEC,Japan in 1991.

Types of carbon nanotubes Nanotubes form different types, which can be described by the chiral vector (n, m), where n and m are integers of the vector equation R = na1 + ma2 . The chiral vector is determined by the diagram at the left. Imagine that the nanotube is unraveled into a planar sheet. Draw two lines (the blue lines) along the tube axis where the separation takes place. In other words, if you cut along the two blue lines and then match their ends together in a cylinder, you get the nanotube that you started with. Now, find any point on one of the blue lines that intersects one of the carbon atoms (point A). Next, draw the Armchair line (the thin yellow line), which travels across each hexagon, separating them into two equal halves. Now that you have the armchair line drawn, find a point along the other tube axis that intersects a carbon atom nearest to the Armchair line (point B). Now connect A and B with our chiral vector, R (red arrow). The wrapping angle ; (not shown) is formed between R and the Armchair line. If R lies along the Armchair line ( =0), then it is called an "Armchair" nanotube. If =30, then the tube is of the "zigzag" type. Otherwise, if 0< <30 then it is a "chiral" tube. The vector a1 lies along the "zigzag" line.

The other vector a2 has a different magnitude than a1, but its direction is a reflection of a1over the Armchair line. When added together, they equal the chiral vector R. The values of n and m determine the chirality, or "twist" of

the nanotube. The chirality in turn affects the conductance of the nanotube, it's density, it's lattice structure, and other properties. A SWNT is considered metallic if the value n - m is divisible by three. Otherwise, the nanotube is semiconducting. Consequently, when tubes are formed with random values of n and m, we would expect that two-thirds of nanotubes would be semi-conducting, while the other third would be metallic, which happens to be the case. Carbon Nanotubes (CNTs) may consist of one tube of graphite, a one-atom thick single walled nanotubes (SWNTs) a two atom thick double walled carbon nanotubes (DWNTs) or a number of concentric tubes called multiwalled nanotubes (MWNTs). When viewed with a transmission electron microscope these tubes appear as planes. Whereas single walled nanotubes (SWNTs) appear as two planes, in multi walled nanotubes more than two planes are observed, and can be seen as a series of parallel lines. There are different types of Carbon Nanotubes (CNTs), because the graphitic sheets can be rolled in different ways. The three types of Carbon Nanotubes (CNTs) structure are Zigzag, Armchair, and Chiral. It is possible to recognize zigzag, armchair, and chiral Carbon Nanotubes (CNTs) just by following the pattern across the diameter of the tubes, and analyzing their cross-sectional structure.

SINGLE WALLED CARBON NANOTUBE

Multi walled nanotubes (MWNTs) can come in an even more complex array of forms, because each concentric nanotube can have different structures, and hence there are a variety of sequential arrangements. The simplest sequence is when concentric layers are identical but different in diameter. However, mixed variants are possible, consisting of two or more types of concentric Carbon Nanotubes (CNTs) arranged in different orders. These can have either regular layering or random layering. The structure of the carbon nanotube (CNTs) influences its properties including electrical and thermal conductivity, density, and lattice structure. Both type and diameter are important. The wider the diameter of the carbon nanotube (CNTs), the more it behaves like graphite. The narrower the diameter of the Carbon Nanotubes (CNTs), the more its intrinsic properties depends upon its specific type.

MULTI WALLED CARBON NANOTUBE

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PROPERTIES :Mechanical properties: Strength Carbon nanotubes are the strongest and stiffest materials yet discovered in terms of tensile strength and elastic modulus respectively. This strength results from the covalent sp2 bonds formed between the individual carbon atoms. In 2000, a multi-walled carbon nanotube was tested to have a tensile strength of 63 gigapascals (GPa). (For illustration, this translates into the ability to endure tension of a weight equivalent to 6422 kg on a cable with cross-section of 1 mm2.) Further studies, conducted in 2008, revealed that individual CNT shells have strengths of up to ~100 GPa, which is in good agreement with quantum/atomistic models. Since carbon nanotubes have a low density for a solid of 1.3 to 1.4 g/cm3, its specific strength of up to 48,000 kNmkg1 is the best of known materials, compared to highcarbon steel's 154 kNmkg1. Under excessive tensile strain, the tubes will undergo plastic deformation, which means the deformation is permanent. This deformation begins at strains of approximately 5% and can increase the maximum strain the tubes undergo before fracture by releasing strain energy. Although the strength of individual CNT shells is extremely high, weak shear interactions between adjacent shells and tubes leads to significant reductions in the effective strength of multi-walled carbon nanotubes and carbon nanotube bundles down to only a few GPas. This limitation has been recently addressed by applying high-energy electron irradiation, which crosslinks inner shells and tubes, and effectively increases the strength of these materials to ~60 GPa for multi-walled carbon nanotubes and ~17 GPa for double-walled carbon nanotube bundles. CNTs are not nearly as strong under compression.

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Because of their hollow structure and high aspect ratio, they tend to undergo buckling when placed under compressive, torsional, or bending stress.

Comparison of mechanical properties Young's modulus Tensile strength Elongation Material (TPa) (GPa) break (%) E SWNT ~1 (from 1 to 5) 1353 16 Armchair 0.94 126.2 23.1 SWNTT Zigzag 0.94 94.5 15.617.5 SWNTT MWNTE 0.20.80.95 1163150 E Stainless steel 0.1860.214 0.381.55 1550 Kevlar 0.060.18 3.63.8 ~2 29&149E
E

at

Experimental observation; TTheoretical prediction

The above discussion referred to axial properties of the nanotube, whereas simple geometrical considerations suggest that carbon nanotubes should be much softer in the radial direction than along the tube axis. Indeed, TEM observation of radial elasticity suggested that even the van der Waals forces can deform two adjacent nanotubes.Nanoindentation experiments, performed by several groups on multiwalled carbon nanotubes and tapping/contact mode atomic force microscope measurement performed on single-walled carbon nanotube, indicated Young's modulus of the order of several GPa confirming that CNTs are indeed rather soft in the radial direction.

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Hardness Standard single-walled carbon nanotubes can withstand a pressure up to 24GPa without deformation. They then undergo a transformation to superhard phase nanotubes. Maximum pressures measured using current experimental techniques are around 55GPa. However, these new superhard phase nanotubes collapse at an even higher, albeit unknown, pressure. The bulk modulus of superhard phase nanotubes is 462 to 546 GPa, even higher than that of diamond(420 GPa for single diamond crystal).

Electrical Properties : Because of the symmetry and unique electronic structure of graphene, the structure of a nanotube strongly affects its electrical properties. For a given (n,m) nanotube, if n = m, the nanotube is metallic;

Band structures computed using tight binding approximation for (6,0) CNT (zigzag, metallic) (10,2) CNT (semiconducting) and (10,10) CNT (armchair, metallic).

if n m is a multiple of 3, then the nanotube is semiconducting with a very small band gap, otherwise the nanotube is a moderate semiconductor. Thus all armchair (n = m) nanotubes are metallic, and nanotubes (6,4), (9,1), etc. are semiconducting.

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However, this rule has exceptions, because curvature effects in small diameter carbon nanotubes can strongly influence electrical properties. Thus, a (5,0) SWCNT that should be semiconducting in fact is metallic according to the calculations. Likewise, vice versa-- zigzag and chiral SWCNTs with small diameters that should be metallic have finite gap (armchair nanotubes remain metallic).

In theory, metallic nanotubes can carry an electric current density of 4 109 A/cm2, which is more than 1,000 times greater than those of metals such as copper, where for copper interconnects current densities are limited by electromigration.

Multiwalled carbon nanotubes with interconnected inner shells show superconductivity with a relatively high transition temperature Tc = 12 K. In contrast, the Tc value is an order of magnitude lower for ropes of single-walled carbon nanotubes or for MWNTs with usual, non-interconnected shells.

Thermal Properties : All nanotubes are expected to be very good thermal conductors along the tube, exhibiting a property known as "ballistic conduction", but good insulators laterally to the tube axis. Measurements show that a SWNT has a room-temperature thermal conductivity along its axis of about 3500 Wm1K1; compare this to copper, a metal well known for its good thermal conductivity, which transmits 385 Wm1K1. A SWNT has a room-temperature thermal conductivity across its axis (in the radial direction) of about 1.52 Wm1K1, which is about as thermally conductive as soil. The temperature stability of carbon nanotubes is estimated to be up to 2800 C in vacuum and about 750 C in air.

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APPLICATIONS OF CARBON NANOTUBES CNT has been used widely in various areas and equipments such as Sport equipment Aerospace Automotive Fuel cells and batteries Filtration Electromagnetic shielding Sensors and actuators Flat panel displays Biomedical implants Packaging Nanoelectronic devices

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CNT APPLICATIONS IN AUTOMOBILES CNT can be used in automobiles since it reduces the body weight and improves the performance.Also it enhances the structural and sensing properties by infusing the body with CNT epoxy.

CNT has wide variety of applications in automobiles. Some of them are Faster Flywheels As Capacitors In Windows and windscreens Bearing Assembly Braking Applications Fuel Tanks Pressure Gauge

Faster flywheels A flywheel is like a battery in that it stores energy. But unlike a battery, this energy is mechanical and stored via a wheel rotating at high speed (the faster the spin, the more energy it stores). Flywheels offer certain advantages over batteries. But a flywheel, if spun too fast, can shatter because of the strength limits of its material. Because of their strength, CNTs could be used to make faster flywheels that store more energy without shattering.

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While Flywheels have seen only limited use in amusement rides, race cars and backup power supplies, using CNTs could allow flywheels to become more prevalent in areas like public transportation and hybrid cars.

Better capacitors Carbon nanotubes may help power vehicles of the future as well as making up their structural components. In one demonstration, it has been shown to be possible to produce nanotube capacitors which can store approximately as much electrical power as a battery and which have advantages such as shorter discharge and recharge times. Instead of storing electricity chemically like a battery, capacitors hold it physically by building a charge on a material called a dielectric. The dielectric's surface area determines how much charge it can hold. CNTs have extraordinarily high surface areas, and using them as the dielectric could increase the storage ability of capacitors to be on par with modern batteries. But if we already have batteries what's the use? Batteries take hours to charge and lose their capacity with time. Capacitors don't have these problems. CNT capacitors might one day be used in instantly rechargeable laptops and electric cars.

Windows and WindScreens Carbon nanotube composite materials are used for the windows, windscreens, etc.This will add good electrical conductivity properties and allow the windscreen & windows to be connected to a heater and the car to de-ice easily and quickly.

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CNT Braking Applications Carbon nanotube carbon-carbon composites have already been developed for braking applications in aerospace industry. This ensure further weight loss with improved performance. Hence it can be applied in automobiles.

Fuel Tanks CNT is used in fuel tanks and it can be used for storing hydrogen which is a possible fuel of the future with high efficiency.CNT is used in fuel tanks because they have high strength and they weigh less and hence their strength to weight ratio is high which is a major factor for a fuel tank to store the fuel.

Pressure Gauge A nanotube pressure gauge could be installed to measure air pressure in the tyres. The gauge will be very accurate and precise due to the unique electrical and mechanical properties.

CNT IN AUTOMOBILES - CURRENT STATUS Italian motor giant Fiat has taken out a patent on the use of carbon nanotubes in motor vehicle components, to produce parts which have integrated sensor ability. The patent mentions fuel tanks, pipes, seats and bumpers as possible applications. Much of the mass of a vehicle is taken up with equipment and here there is scope for carbon nanotubes to be used to achieve massive weight savings.

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APPLICATION EXAMPLES OF CNT IN AUTOMOBILES

Advantages : 1) Greater fuel efficiency . 2) Potential for radical redesigns built around the properties of CNRP composites . 3) Potential for 'crashproof' or crash-resistant vehicles.

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References : 1) www.wikipedia.org 2) Carbon Nanomaterials Use in Transport Applications by Dr. BojanO. Boskovic,Cambridge Nanomaterials Technology Ltd 3) www.inno_cnt.de 4) www.understandingnano.com/nanotubes-carbon.html 5) israel.ahk.de/fileadmin/ahk_israel/Dokumente/.../InnoCNT.pdf

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