Predicting the elastic properties of single-walled carbon nanotubes

Advances in the prediction of the mechanical properties of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) are reviewed in this paper. Based on the classical Cauchy-Born rule, a new computational method for the prediction of Young's modulus of SWNTs is investigated. Compared with the existing approaches, the developed method circumvents the difficulties of high computational efforts by taking into consideration of the microstructure of nanotube and the atomic potential of hydrocarbons. Numerical results of Young's modulus and its variation with respect to the deformation gradient tensor are given and discussed. The results obtained are in good agreement with those obtained by laboratory experiments and other numerical methods.