Abstract
Over the years, carbon nanotubes have attracted much attention in engineering
materials research due to their outstanding and superlative properties. Owing to the demands
for lightweight materials with excellent mechanical and thermal properties for diverse
industrial applications encouraged the incorporation of carbon nanotubes into titanium alloys.
However, there are various challenges associated with the incorporation of carbon nanotubes
into titanium alloys which includes; uniform dispersion and retaining the structural integrity of
carbon nanotubes after dispersion. Past works have emphasized the importance of
homogeneous dispersion with less structural damage to the carbon nanotubes in the various
metal matrix. Therefore, this research focused on dispersion of 0.5 wt. % multiwalled carbon
nanotubes in Ti6Al4V using low energy ball milling and evaluating the dispersion
characteristics and structural integrity of MWCNTs in Ti6Al4V after dispersion. Various
characterization techniques such as high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, scanning
electron microscopy, X-Ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy were adopted to ascertain the
microstructural evolution, morphology, interfacial reaction and structural integrity of the
carbon nanotubes in the Ti6Al4V powders before and after dispersion. The results indicated
homogeneous dispersion of carbon nanotubes with less structural damages which are
confirmed from the (ID/IG) ratio of the Raman spectra and the TEM images.