Eur. Phys. J. B 54, 109-112 (2006)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2006-00428-x

Transverse elasticity of multi-walled carbon nanotubes

Soft Condensed Matter Lab., Department of Physics and Institute of Theoretical Physics and Astrophysics, Xiamen University, Xiamen, 361005, P.R. China

Corresponding author: ^a cxwu@xmu.edu.cn

Received: 17 January 2006
Revised: 23 October 2006
Published online: 8 December 2006

Abstract

A discrete shell model is proposed to describe the radial deformation of carbon nanotubes under a hydrostatic pressure and the radial Young's modulus of (single- or multi-walled) nanotubes is obtained. It is found that the radial modulus decreases with increasing tube diameter while increases with increasing number of layers. The computational results agree well with the previous results of SWNTs and indicate that the radial modulus of carbon nanotubes is independent of the Poisson's ratio.