Adhesion of Partially and Fully Collapsed Nanotubes

Abstract

The competition between the structural rigidity and the van der Waals interactions may lead to collapsing of aligned nanotubes, and the resulting changes of both configurations and properties promise the applications of nanotubes in nano-composites and nano-electronics. In this paper, a finite-deformation model is applied to study the adhesion of parallel multiwall nanotubes with both partial and full collapsing, in which the noncontact adhesion energy is analytically determined. The analytical solutions of both configurations and energies of collapsed nanotubes are consistent with the molecular dynamics (MD) results, demonstrating the effectiveness of the finite-deformation model. To study the critical conditions of generating the partially and fully collapsed multiwall nanotubes, our analytical model gives the predictions for both the geometry- and energy-related critical diameters, which are helpful for the stability analysis and design of nanotube-based nano-devices.