单壁碳纳米管拉伸变形的原子尺度模拟

采用分子动力学方法对单壁碳纳米管的拉伸变形行为进行了模拟,结果表明,碳纳米管具有较高的断裂应变.在结构产生缺陷之前,碳纳米管表现出弹性变形的特征.通过对能量变化的分析可以看出,能量分布的不均匀是导致结构失稳产生缺陷的主要因素.通过对含初始结构缺陷的碳纳米管在拉伸变形过程中的构型变化进行分析,发现在缺陷附近原来相邻的两个六边形蜂窝结构,随着拉伸变形的发展转变成5 7结构(Stone Wales转变),能量产生突变,应变能的释放使系统能量降低.分析也表明,较少数目的初始缺陷对碳纳米管的力学性质并不会有太大影响.

Atomic Simulation on the Tension Deformation of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes

The molecular dynamics method was adopted to investigate the tension deformation for SWCNTs with different chiralities and radius. The results show that nanotubes have an extremely large breaking strain. Carbon nanotubes are completely ductile before their structural defects appear. Through tracing the evolution of the spacial configuration of a micro-structural cell of SWCNTs, it is found that the torsion deformation results in the change of structural symmetry. Thus the load is no longer well-distributed. The structural defects will occur with further loading. The systematic energy change of SWCNTs is observed. It can be seen that there is a structural transformation around the initial vacancy defects when the axial tension strain reaches a certain value. The two adjacent hexagons change to one pentagon and one heptagon (also called the Stone-Wales transformation). The 5-7 configuration makes strain energy release, and the systematic energy falls. This configuration is more preferable from the viewpoint of the energy. The results also show that fewer defects have weak influence on the mechanical properties of SWCNTs under the present initial vacancy defect condition.