An elastic shell model for characterizing single-walled carbon nanotubes.

This paper proposes a two-dimensional elastic shell model to characterize the deformation of single-walled carbon nanotubes using the in-plane rigidity, Poisson ratio, bending rigidity and off-plane torsion rigidity as independent elastic constants. It was found that the off-plane torsion rigidity of a single-walled carbon nanotube is not zero due to the off-plane change in the π-orbital electron density on both sides of the nanotube. It was concluded that a three-dimensional elastic shell model of single-walled carbon nanotubes can be established with well-defined effective thickness.