Reinforced Resin Matrix

Well, your life hangs in the balance, so be careful.

Do you have any experience with lay-ups? Vacuum bags? Epoxies? Composite materials?

You may not need any more stiffness, or shock resistance.

You will need to test the modified materials to be sure they perform as they should.

Good luck.

Thank you Lyn, yes,a couple of decades, build/repair raceboats for a living. My concerns stem from instant and total failures I've observed in carbon fiber sailboat masts. (hand layup, alternating biaxial/uni cloth in west system 5-1.05/209- resin to mfg spec). Seemingly insignificant rigging strikes can result in a tiny milky spot without surface fracture. These tend to peel propagate both tangent to the fiber strand and multi layer. Under magnification the failed resin looks like gravel. The nanotubes? If those little baskets could be made homogeneous within the resin matrix,well,,you get the idea. Testing will be expensive but with aircraft there are no do overs. (Ideas?)

Delamination is a bad thing. Is it because of poor impact strength of the resin, or less than perfect adhesion of resin to fiber?

I think you are more qualified than I, so I can only give encouragement to experiment and test.

Have you contacted any big resin formulators? Dow/3M/Henkel/Du Pont? I was never impressed by Loctite's products, but that was 20 years ago. (Now you know why I can't help you, I'm a dinosaur) They may be working with nanotechnology.

Good luck.

In addition to the above, of note: a relatively small proportion of arc soot is actually nanotube

High-quality single-walled carbon nanotubes from arc-produced soot

Abstract

High-quality single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) were obtained from arc-produced soot using a three-step purification process consisting of soft oxidation, air oxidation, and a high-temperature vacuum treatment. Firstly an oxide layer was formed on the surface of the metal catalyst, which prevents the SWNTs from undergoing metal-assisted dissociation during the process. After the final step, about 20% of the weight of the initial raw soot remained and the final product contained less than 1% metal. Scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy and Raman spectroscopy were used to characterize the SWNTs obtained.

• Hisashi Kajiura^{a, ,} ,
• Shigemitsu Tsutsui^a,
• Houjin Huang^a,
• Yousuke Murakami^b

So my first suggestion would be some experiments on what the metal-containing 80% does to your epoxy.

Or figure out how much non-nanotube material you can tolerate, 99% nanotube runs about $250 a gram.

Yo have a big ticket technological challenge. Airplane manufacturer of mainly carbon fiber components use additional kevlar and at least 2 different glass fabric for a mix and match adiustment of the local material characteristics. The designer make great use of the directional properties.

Additionally, woven and stranded fibres retain a well known portion of the resin during vacuum bagging. Losing the excess to a sacrifical layer.

Since the nanotubes are a powder, none of the described (and more) knowledge is available to you. Simply put you are entirely on your own to devise a new technology. I wish you great luck and perseverance.