Prediction of elastic properties for single-walled carbon nanotubes

Based on a link between molecular and solid mechanics, an analytical method was developed for modeling the elastic properties of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs). A SWNT is regarded as a continuum-shell model which is composed of the discrete molecular structures linked by the carbon-to-carbon bonds. The elastic properties were investigated for the SWNTs as a function of the nanotube size in terms of the chiral vector integers (n,m). The theoretical prediction on elastic properties agreed reasonably with the existing experiment and theoretical results. The present formulas are able to serve as a good approximation of the elastic properties for SWNTs.