The effects of geometrical parameters on force distributions and mechanics of carbon nanotubes: A critical study

In this paper, using the continuum approximation together with Lennard–Jones potential, a new semi-analytical expression is given to evaluate the van der Waals interaction between two single-walled carbon nanotubes. Based on this expression, two new formulations are also proposed to model multi-walled carbon nanotubes. In the first one, the interactions between each pair of shells from the inner and outer tubes are summed up over all of the pairs, whereas in the second formulation, a set of correction factors are applied to convert the results of double-walled carbon nanotubes to the correlated multi-walled ones. With respect to the present formulations, extensive studies on the variations of force distributions are performed by varying nanotube geometries so that the important features of the geometrical parameters are explored. Moreover, an acceptance condition for a nanotube at rest which is to be sucked into a semi-infinite nanotube is obtained. The influence of different geometrical parameters on the acceptance condition and suction energy, two main characteristics of nanotube-based systems for applications such as drug delivery and so on, is fully demonstrated. Lastly, an interesting relation for the maximum value of suction energy in terms of geometrical parameters is also extracted in this study.