Abstract
A bundle of aligned carbon nanotubes (CNTs) under lateral loading and heating is considered under plane strain conditions within the framework of a molecular dynamics model with a reduced number of degrees of freedom. Bundles of CNTs of sufficiently large diameter exhibit negative lateral thermal expansion. The coefficient of thermal expansion is practically constant up to a temperature of 1500 K and practically does not depend on biaxial lateral compression up to a volumetric compressive strain of 0.06. This anomalous behavior is explained by the two mechanisms: elliptization of the CNT cross section and bending of the CNT walls by thermal fluctuations. Elliptization leads to a decrease in the cross‐sectional area of the CNT, and the bending of the CNT wall leads to a decrease in the effective diameter of the CNT. A bundle with CNTs of the largest investigated diameter demonstrates a large negative coefficient of linear thermal expansion, K−1, which is weakly dependent on temperature.
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