An elastic shell model for characterizing single-walled carbon nanotubes

Abstract

This paper proposes a two-dimensional elastic shell model to characterize the deformationof single-walled carbon nanotubes using the in-plane rigidity, Poisson ratio, bending rigidityand off-plane torsion rigidity as independent elastic constants. It was found that the off-planetorsion rigidity of a single-walled carbon nanotube is not zero due to the off-plane change in theπ-orbital electron density on both sides of the nanotube. It was concluded that athree-dimensional elastic shell model of single-walled carbon nanotubes can be establishedwith well-defined effective thickness.