Overseas industrial attachment report completed at Korea institute of material science

• Main Author: Tan, Yu Jun
• Other Authors: Chian Kerm Sin
• Format: Industrial Attachment (IA)
• Language: English
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/61701
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

This report serves to summarise the projects and experiences gained with Korea Institute of Materials Science (KIMS) throughout 5 months of Industrial Attachment. KIMS is an institute that focus on facilitating Research and Development (R&D), test and evaluation and provide technical support to materials related technology. The author works under the Composite Materials Group and her job scope includes dispersion of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and fabrication of composite samples. Although the author performed several different tasks related to composite materials, she will like to highlight 2 projects in this report, which are fabrication of CNTs/carbon fiber hybrid multiscale composites and fabrication of thick 3D-reinforced carbon/phenolic composites. CNTs with tube diameters on the nanometer scale have remarkably high aspect ratio, specific stiffness and strength in spite of low density. CNTs are ideal candidate for reinforcement in composite materials. By calendering, CNTs are dispersed into resins using 3-roll mill. The product from dispersion is then combined with carbon fabric to become hybrid multiscale composites. Different type of composites requires different fabrication techniques. In this report, fabrication of CNT/carbon fiber hybrid multiscale composites and fabrication of thick 3D-reinforced carbon/phenolic composites are clearly discussed. In this Industrial Attachment, the author learned that researchers need to have very good understanding on the materials and processes while doing experiments. They rely on experience and “trial and error” approaches to improve the manufacturability of a sample prototype.