Search results for "Mechanical properties of carbon nanotubes"
showing 10 items of 24 documents
Multifunctional properties of nanocomposites made by 1D and 2D graphene based fillers
2015
High aspect ratio graphene based fillers with different dimensionalities showed the ability to greatly modify rheological, mechanical, thermal and electrical properties of polymers at very low content. In this work, the effect of filler dimensionality on the multifunctional properties of an epoxy matrix reinforced by both carbon nanotubes (1D) and graphite nanoplatelets (2D) have been investigated across the percolation region. Keywords-- Carbon nanotube, Graphite nanoplatelet, nanocomposites, mechanical properties, ...
Mechanics of deformation of single- and multi-wall carbon nanotubes
2004
Abstract An effective continuum/finite element (FE) approach for modeling the structure and the deformation of single- and multi-wall carbon nanotubes (CNTs) is presented. Individual tubes are modeled using shell elements, where a specific pairing of elastic properties and mechanical thickness of the tube wall is identified to enable successful modeling with shell theory. The incorporation and role of an initial internal distributed stress through the thickness of the wall, due to the cylindrical nature of the tube, are discussed. The effects of van der Waals forces, crucial in multi-wall nanotubes and in tube/tube or tube/substrate interactions, are simulated by the construction of special…
The Engineering of Hot Carbon Nanotubes with a Focused Electron Beam
2004
Single-wall and multiwall carbon nanotubes at high temperature are irradiated with the focused electron beam in an electron microscope. Nanotubes can be tailored with monolayer precision, and new morphologies of nanotubes are created. Atoms from layers of multiwall tubes can be removed and the tubes can be bent by a predefined angle. Bundles of single-wall tubes are transformed locally to multiwall tubes with coherent transition between the two modifications.
Electronic and optical properties of carbon nanotubes under pure bending
2010
The high aspect ratio of carbon nanotubes makes them prone to bending. To know how bending affects the tubes is therefore crucial for tube identification and for electrical component design. Very few studies, however, have investigated tubes under small bending well below the buckling limit, because of technical problems due to broken translational symmetry. In this Brief Report a cost-effective and exact modeling of singe-walled nanotubes under such small bending is enabled by revised periodic boundary conditions, combined with density-functional tight-binding. The resulting, bending-induced changes in electronic and optical properties fall in clear chirality-dependent trend families. Whil…
Electromechanical Behavior of Single and Multiwall Carbon Nanotubes
2008
Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) can be metallic or semiconductors depending simply on geometric characteristics. This peculiar electronic behavior, combined with high mechanical strength, make them potential building blocks of a new nano-electronic technology. High resolution images of CNTs often disclose structural deformations such as bent, twisted, or collapsed tubes. These deformations break the tube symmetry, and a change in their electronic properties should result. A computationally effective mixed finite element-tight-binding approach able to simulate the electromechanical behavior of single and multiwall nanotubes used in nano-electronic devices is presented. The finite element (FE) comput…
Effect of elliptical deformation on molecular polarizabilities of model carbon nanotubes from atomic increments.
2003
The interacting induced dipole polarization model implemented in our program POLAR is used for the calculation of the dipole-dipole polarizability alpha. The method is tested with single-wall carbon nanotube models as a function of nanotube radius and elliptical deformation. The results for polarizability follow the same trend as reference calculations performed with our version of the program PAPID. For the zigzag tubes, the polarizability is found to follow a remarkably simple law, that is, it varies as the inverse of the radius. A dramatic effect is also found with elliptical deformation. It is found that the polarizability and related properties can be modified continuously and reversib…
Electrical Conduction in Carbon Nanotubes under Mechanical Deformations
2009
The enormous potential of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) as primary components in electronic devices and NEMS necessitates the understanding and predicting of the effects of mechanical deformation on electron transport in CNTs. In principle, detailed atomic/electronic calculations can provide both the deformed configuration and the resulting electrical transport behavior of the CNT. However, the computational expense of these simulations limits the size of the CNTs that can be studied with this technique and a direct analysis of CNTs of the dimension used in nano-electronic devices, particularly multi-wall CNTs (MWNTs), seems prohibitive at the present. Here a computationally effective mixed finit…
Lateral force microscopy of multiwalled carbon nanotubes
2009
Carbon nanotubes are usually imaged with the atomic force microscope (AFM) in non-contact mode. However, in many applications, such as mechanical manipulation or elasticity measurements, contact mode is used. The forces affecting the nanotube are then considerable and not fully understood. In this work lateral forces were measured during contact mode imaging with an AFM across a carbon nanotube. We found that, qualitatively, both magnitude and sign of the lateral forces to the AFM tip were independent of scan direction and can be concluded to arise from the tip slipping on the round edges of the nanotube. The dependence on the normal force applied to the tip and on the ratio between nanotub…
In situ nucleation of carbon nanotubes by the injection of carbon atoms into metal particles.
2007
The synthesis of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) of desired chiralities and diameters is one of the most important challenges in nanotube science and achieving such selectivity may require a detailed understanding of their growth mechanism. We report the formation of CNTs in an entirely condensed phase process that allows us, for the first time, to monitor the nucleation of a nanotube on the spherical surface of a metal particle. When multiwalled CNTs containing metal particle cores are irradiated with an electron beam, carbon from graphitic shells surrounding the metal particles is ingested into the body of the particle and subsequently emerges as single-walled nanotubes (SWNTs) or multiwalled nan…
Multiwalled carbon nanotube reinforced polymer composites
2008
Due to their high stiffness and strength, as well as their electrical conductivity, carbon nanotubes are under intense investigation as fillers in polymer matrix composites. The nature of the carbon nanotube/polymer bonding and the curvature of the carbon nanotubes within the polymer have arisen as particular factors in the efficacy of the carbon nanotubes to actually provide any enhanced stiffness or strength to the composite. Here the effects of carbon nanotube curvature and interface interaction with the matrix on the composite stiffness are investigated using micromechanical analysis. In particular, the effects of poor bonding and thus poor shear lag load transfer to the carbon nanotube…