Compressive and tensile properties of Ar filled carbon nano-peapods

In order to investigate the compressive and tensile mechanical properties of the carbon nano-peapods filled with Ar atoms outside, inside, or both outside and inside their C-60 fullerenes, the MD (molecular dynamics) method was used to simulate the compression and tension of the carbon peapods. According to the calculated results the effects of the filled pattern and amount of Ar atom on the mechanical properties of the carbon peapods were discussed systematically. It is shown that (1) the Ar filled nano-peapods have better compressive properties than the unfilled one, and the more Ar atoms are filled, the better the compressive properties are, (2) when the same amount of Ar atoms are filled, the carbon peapod with Ar atoms both outside and inside its C-60 filllerenes has the best compressive properties and the one with Ar atoms only outside has the worst compressive properties, and (3) the filled pattern and amount of Ar atom seem to have little effect on the tensile properties of the carbon peapods. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V All rights reserved.