Analysis of electrical conductivity of carbon nanotube-reinforced two-phase composites

Abstract

This short paper presents a simple approach for calculating the effective electrical conductivity of carbon nanotubes-reinforced two-phase composite materials. The approach is developed by modifying the traditional effective medium approximation to include the effect of percolation threshold. The predicted electrical conductivity from the present approach is validated by using published experimental results. It is shown that the effective electrical conductivity of two-phase composites can be calculated by using the lower bound of the effective medium approximation if the inclusion volume fraction is below its percolation threshold, and the projection of the upper bound of the effective medium approximation if the inclusion volume fraction exceeds its percolation threshold.