Mechanical properties of carbon nanotube by molecular dynamics simulation

The mechanical properties of single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) are comp uted and simulated by using molecular dynamics (MD) in this paper. From the MD simulation for an armchair SWCNT whose diameter is 1.2 nm and length is 4.7 nm, we get that its Young modulus is 3.62 TPa, and tensile strength is 9.6 GPa. It is shown that the Young modulus and tensile strength of armcha ir SWCNTs are 1 similar to2 order higher than those of ordinary metal mater ials. Therefore we can draw a conclusion that carbon nanotubes (CNT) belong to a particular material with excellent mechanical properties. (C) 2001 El sevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.