Ab Initio Calculations of the Walls Shear Strength of Carbon Nanotubes

TL;DR

This paper uses ab initio density functional calculations to determine the shear strength of double-walled carbon nanotubes, providing insights into their interwall interaction energies and forces needed for relative motion.

Contribution

It introduces a computational approach to evaluate the shear strength of DWNTs based on interwall interaction energy dependence from first principles.

Findings

Calculated interwall interaction energies and forces for DWNTs

Estimated shear strength for axial sliding and rotation

Discussed potential for experimental validation

Abstract

The dependence of the energy of interwall interaction in double-walled carbon nanotubes (DWNT) on the relative position of walls has been calculated using the density functional method. This dependence is used to evaluate forces that are necessary for the relative telescopic motion of walls and to calculate the shear strength of DWNT for the relative sliding of walls along the nanotube axis and for their relative rotation about this axis. The possibility of experimental verification of the obtained results is discussed.