Research on the Elastic Modulus of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes

The calculation of elastic modulus of carbon nanotubes is an essential prerequisite for future Micro-nano devices fabrication that based on carbon nanotubes. The interaction potential of C-C covalent bond in single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) is described by Terrsoff-Brenner potential in this paper. The elastic modulus of SWCNTs is ranged from 1.1078TPa to 1.23789TPa with the diameter increases from 0.3176nm to 2.0626nm by molecular dynamics (MD) simulation. The critical diameters of armchair and zigzag nanotubes are 1nm and 0.6nm.The elastic modulus changes with the diameter of nanotubes increasing clearly when the diameter smaller than the critical diameter, but the value of elastic modules tends to convergence when the diameter of nanotubes larger than the critical diameter.