Issue 41

X. Wu et alii, Frattura ed Integrità Strutturale, 41 (2017) 388-395; DOI: 10.3221/IGF-ESIS.41.50 388 Carbon nano-tubes in improving the mechanical property of cement-based composite materials Xu Wu, Li Dai Institute of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Nantong Institute of Technology, Nantong, Jiangsu, 226000, China wxlrgwu@163.com A BSTRACT . Carbon nano-tubes as a kind of novel nanometer material have been extensively applied in cement-based composite materials to improve their properties. This study prepared carbon nano-tubes cement based composite materials by evenly scattering carbon nano-tubes in cement materials using ultrasonic method and emphatically investigation the improvement of the mechanical property. The results demonstrated that, the addition of carbon nano-tubes could significantly relieve the mechanical properties of cement based composite materials. When the mixing amount of carbon nano-tubes reached the optimal value, i.e., 0.1%, the improvement of the mechanical property of the carbon nano-tubes cement based composite materials was the best. The microstructure analysis using scanning electron microscope suggested that, carbon nano-tubes produced bridging and pullout effects in the cement-based materials, which enhanced the damage resistance of the cement based materials. K EYWORDS . Carbon nano-tubes; Cement-based composite material; Mechanical property. Citation: Wu, X., Dai, L., Carbon nano-tubes in improving the mechanical property of cement-based composite materials, Frattura ed Integrità Strutturale, 41 (2017) 388-395. Received: 11.04.2017 Accepted: 15.05.2017 Published: 01.07.2017 Copyright: © 2017 This is an open access article under the terms of the CC-BY 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. I NTRODUCTION ith the rapid development of modern society, requirements for the mechanical property of cement concrete whose demand is the largest and which is the most widely used construction material has become stricter and stricter. The traditional cement materials have been far from enough to satisfy the requirements on material properties in special occasions such as earthquake and temperature stress effect in dam body. How to improve the mechanical property of cement concrete and then perform effective test has been an issue concerned by the world [1]. Relevant studies [2-4] suggested that, the addition of an appropriate amount of carbon materials in cement base can not only enhance the mechanical property and crack resistance, but also impart a favorable voltage-sensitive property. Carbon nano-tubes, a kind of tubular nano carbon material containing graphite crystal, has nearly perfect mechanical performance compared to the traditional carbon fibres. It is the fibre material with the best comprehensive performance so far. Carbon nano-tubes can be typed into single-wall carbon nano-tubes and multiple-wall carbon nano-tubes according to the layers of W