Rotation, elongation and failure of CNT nanoropes induced by electric field

XH Yan and QS Yang, COMPUTATIONAL MATERIALS SCIENCE, 98, 333-339 (2015).

DOI: 10.1016/j.commatsci.2014.11.034

Carbon nanotube (CNT) nanorope is a hierarchical assembly by twisting a CNT-bundle array. The deformation and failure of nanoropes induced by an electric field are investigated in this paper. A modified atomistic moment method is used to obtain the distribution of electric charges on the nanoropes. Then the rotation, elongation and failure of nanoropes with different twisted angles in an electric field are simulated by molecular dynamics (MD) method. It is found that under action of electric field, nanoropes can rotate around core axis and extent along axial direction, and even break, depending on the strength of applied electric field. The external charges on nanoropes can affect the Young's modulus, critical broken stress of CNT nanoropes. This research can contribute to design of various nano-devices and new function structures based on CNT nanoropes. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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