Nano-Scaled Convective Heat Transfer of Aligned Carbon Nanotube Arrays for Electrically Driven Shape Memory Polymer

Vertically aligned forests of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) were grown on a quartz substrate using chemical vapor deposition. Shape memory nanocomposites were prepared by filling the aligned CNTs with polyurethane shape memory polymer (SMP). The aligned dense array of CNTs allows electric current passing through in the horizontal axis and therefore enables SMP nanocomposite electrically conductive. Furthermore, it functions analogously to a pillar heat sink thus improves convective electrothermal heat transfer of the SMP. Experimental results proved that the vertically aligned dense forests of CNTs have significantly improved the electro-thermal performance and resulted in a uniform temperature distribution inside the SMP.