Cyclic Strain, Tunnelling Resistance and Hysteresis in Flexible PE/PANI-Coated MWCNT Films

Author(s)	Dr. Jyoti Mishra
Country	India
Abstract	Flexible films of polyethylene (PE) filled with multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) change their electrical resistance when stretched, and the change on unloading is rarely the same as on loading. This paper compares published data on PE/MWCNT composites, on polyaniline (PANI) coated MWCNTs and on MWCNT networks in other soft matrices. It reads them through Simmons' tunnelling picture and a tunnelling-percolation account of why the gauge factor rises with strain. The PANI shell is treated as a change in the tunnelling barrier between neighbouring tubes, not as a new conduction path. Reported gauge factors for PE matrices run from 0.6 in the elastic region of laser-sintered UHMWPE to 7.6 in printed HDPE structures, and reach 248 for an ethylene-octene copolymer with end-to-end tube contacts; silicone-based networks show resistive hysteresis of 35 to 60 percent. Direct studies of PE with PANI-coated MWCNTs under cyclic strain are scarce. We split hysteresis into lagging gap recovery in the network, viscoelastic and plastic response of the matrix, and measurement artefacts, then ask how strain rate and PE grade change the loop and why the first cycles are discarded.
Keywords	polyethylene, polyaniline-coated carbon nanotubes, tunnelling resistance, piezoresistivity, cyclic strain, electrical hysteresis
Published In	Volume 17, Issue 8, August 2026
Published On	2026-08-14
DOI	https://doi.org/10.71097/IJTAS.v17.i8.1453

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