LAUSR

Abstract The alignment of different carbon nanotube (CNT) structures has been studied extensively using varying techniques. Most of these techniques however do not present a true three-dimensional (3D) representation of the orientation of the material. In this work, the orientation distribution functions obtained from X-ray pole figures for different CNT structures (vertically aligned CNT arrays, randomly orientated buckypaper and horizontally aligned CNT sheets) are presented. This technique is also used to examine the effects of solvent densification and stretching on the alignment of CNT sheets. It has been demonstrated that depending on the solvent used for densification, the alignment achieved varies as the elongation is increased. The physical properties of CNT sheets are shown to depend on the alignment and solvent used for densification. The most aligned CNT sheets densified with acetone and ethanol reveal an increase in tensile strength of 140% and 58% respectively over unaligned sheets.