Electrical conductivity of epoxy-graphene and epoxy-carbon nanofibers composites subjected to compressive loading

This paper focuses on the electrical conductivity of epoxy based nanocomposites containing graphene flakes and carbon nano-fibers, under a compressive load. The study shows that changes in the overall resistivity of the composites induced by a compressive load in are negligible. Comparing these observations with the previous results (Wentzel et al., 2017), allows one to state that electrical conductivity of the epoxy-graphene composite depends on the level of tensile stress in the material and almost independent of the compressive stress. It confirms hypothesis formulated by Wentzel et al. (2017) that the stress dependence of the resistivity under tension is induced by formation of microcracks and partial debonding of the graphene flakes during the tensile loading.