Characterization and Alignment of Carbon Nanofibers under Shear Force in Microchannel

Abstract EN

This work presents a novel method to align CNFs by using shear forces in microchannels.

Effect of two different microchannel sizes (1 mm × 0.1 mm and 1 mm × 0.2 mm) on CNFs alignment is investigated.

SEM images of CNFs preform display significant alignment by both microchannels, which can be interpreted using a second-order alignment tensor and a manual angle meter.

In the second-order alignment tensor description, an elongated ellipse can signify high degree of alignment in the direction of the major axis.

When the microchannel size is 1 mm × 0.2 mm, the lengths of major and minor axes of the ellipse are 0.982 to 0.018.

An angle meter manually shows that 85% of the CNFs are aligned in the direction between 60° and 90° when the microchannel is 1 mm × 0.2 mm.

Both methods can demonstrate that better alignment of CNFs can be obtained using the 1 mm × 0.2 mm microchannel.