A molecular based anisotropic shell model for single-walled carbon nanotubes

Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) are frequently modeled as isotropic elastic shells. However, there are obvious evidences showing that SWCNTs exhibit remarkable chirality induced anisotropy that should not be neglected in some cases. In this paper, we derive the closed-form expressions for the anisotropic elastic properties of SWCNTs using a molecular mechanics model. Based on these anisotropic elastic properties, we develop a molecular based anisotropic shell model (MBASM) for predicting the mechanical behavior of SWCNTs. The explicit expressions for the coupling of axial, circumferential, and torsional strains, the radial breathing mode frequency, and the longitudinal and torsional wave speeds are obtained. We show that the MBASM is capable of predicting the effects of size and chirality on these quantities. The efficiency and accuracy of the MBASM are validated by comparisons of the present results with the existing results. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.