Nonlinear-elastic membrane-shell model for single-walled carbon nanotubes under uni-axial deformation

ANR Chowdhury and SJA Koh and CM Wang, COMPUTATIONAL MATERIALS SCIENCE, 97, 237-244 (2015).

DOI: 10.1016/j.commatsci.2014.10.026

Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations show that single walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) under uniaxial deformation, behaves as nonlinear elastic thin cylinder, prior to buckling or fracture. While the stress- stretch response is independent of diameter and length of the SWCNT, we found that it is dependent on the chirality of SWCNT. A continuum membrane-shell model is proposed for SWCNT. The parameters of this equation are calibrated from results of molecular dynamics. It is found that the membrane-shell model recovers the stress-stretch behavior of SWCNT as obtained from MD simulation. We could hence adopt the continuum membrane shell model to simulate the non-linear response of SWCNT, at a fraction of the simulation time of MD. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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