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Cellulose Nanocrystals Properties And Applications In Renewable Nanocomposites, Esteban Urena Benavides
Cellulose Nanocrystals Properties And Applications In Renewable Nanocomposites, Esteban Urena Benavides
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Development of novel bio-based nanocomposites is fundamental to reduce the dependence on fossil resources and provide a sustainable future. In light of this global problem, cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) have raised interest due to their remarkable mechanical properties. Adequate design of nanocomposites requires a fundamental understanding of how the structure affects the mechanical properties of the material. However, contradictory results in the literature have revealed a lack of comprehension of this relationship for CNC based composites. Consequently, this work provides an explanation to unusual results for CNC nanocomposites presented in the literature and demonstrates the ability to achieve property enhancements in …
Mechanical Evaluation Methods For Polymer And Composite Systems, Donna Theresa Wrublewski
Mechanical Evaluation Methods For Polymer And Composite Systems, Donna Theresa Wrublewski
Open Access Dissertations
This dissertation describes the development and application of various mechanical characterization techniques to four types of polymer composite materials. The composite nature of these materials ranges from molecular to macro-scale, as do the size scales probed by the techniques chosen. The two main goals of this work are to evaluate the suitability of existing characterization methods to new composite materials (and augment the methods as needed), and to use these methods to determine optimal composite system parameters to maximize the desired mechanical response. Chapter 2 employs nondestructive ultrasonic spectroscopy for characterizing the stiffness response of both micron-scale woven composites and …