Molecular Dynamics Studies on Mechanical Properties of Carbon Nano Tubes with Pinhole Defects

Molecular dynamics studies are carried out to investigate the influences of pinhole defects. Artificial defects are considered on the single wall carbon nanotubes (SWNTs). The resonant frequency, tensile strength and buckling strength are evaluated for various chiralities and number of defects. The simulation results indicate that the existence of defects mostly affects the resonant frequency (bending rigidity) of SWNTs as the number of defects increase. However, the tensile and buckling strengths are significantly affected even by a single defect, though, they are not drastically affected by the number of defects.