Term Paper Engineering Mechanics Carbon Nanotubes
Term Paper Engineering Mechanics Carbon Nanotubes
ENGINEERING MECHANICS
CARBON NANOTUBES
Submitted by:
Amit Pokhriyal
11003710
Roll:RE4002A21
Sec:E4002
Carbon nanotubes are hexagonally
shaped arrangements
of carbon atoms that have been
rolled into tubes. These tiny straw-
like cylinders of pure carbon have
useful electrical properties. They
have already been used to make
tiny transistors and one-dimensional
copper wire.
Types of CNTs:-
1.single walled
Most single-walled nanotubes
(SWNT) have a diameter of close to
1 nanometer, with a tube length that
can be many millions of times longer.
The structure of a SWNT can be
conceptualized by wrapping a one-
atom-thick layer of graphite called
graphene into a seamless cylinder.
The way the graphene sheet is
wrapped is represented by a pair of
indices (n,m) called the chiral vector.
The integers n and m denote the
number of unit vectors along two
directions in the honeycomb crystal
lattice of graphene. If m = 0, the
nanotubes are called "zigzag".
If n = m, the nanotubes are called
"armchair". Otherwise, they are
called "chiral". The diameter of a
nanotube can be calculated from its
(n,m) indices as follows
3. Torus
A nanotorus is theoretically
described as carbon nanotube bent
into a torus (doughnut shape).
Nanotori are predicted to have many
unique properties, such as magnetic
moments 1000 times larger than
previously expected for certain
specific radii. Properties such
as magnetic moment, thermal
stability, etc. vary widely depending
on radius of the torus and radius of
the tube.
4. Nanobud
Carbon nanobuds are a newly created
material combining two previously
discovered allotropes of carbon:
carbon nanotubes and fullerenes. In
this new material, fullerene-like
"buds" are covalently bonded to the
outer sidewalls of the underlying
carbon nanotube. This hybrid
material has useful properties of both
fullerenes and carbon nanotubes. In
particular, they have been found to
be exceptionally good field emitters.
In composite materials, the attached
fullerene molecules may function as
molecular anchors preventing
slipping of the nanotubes, thus
improving the composite’s
mechanical properties
5. Cup stacked carbon nanotubes
Cup-stacked carbon nanotubes
(CSCNTs) differ from other quasi-1D
carbon structures that normally
behave as a metallic conductor of
electrons. CSCNTs exhibit
semiconducting behaviors due to the
stacking microstructure of graphene
layers.
6. Extreme carbon nanotubes
The observation of
the longest carbon nanotubes
(18.5 cm long) was reported in 2009.
They were grown on Si substrates
using an improved chemical vapor
deposition (CVD) method and
represent electrically uniform arrays
of single-walled carbon nanotubes.
The shortest carbon nanotube is the
organic compound
cycloparaphenylene which was
synthesized in early 2009.
The thinnest carbon nanotube is
armchair (2,2) CNT with a diameter of
3 Å. This nanotube was grown inside
a multi-walled carbon nanotube.
Assigning of carbon nanotube type
was done by combination of high-
resolution transmission electron
microscopy(HRTEM), Raman
spectroscopy and density functional
theory (DFT) calculations.
The thinnest freestanding single-
walled carbon nanotube is about 4.3
Å in diameter. Researchers
suggested that it can be either (5,1)
or (4,2) SWCNT, but exact type of
carbon nanotube remains
questionable. (3,3), (4,3) and (5,1)
carbon nanotubes (all about 4 Å in
diameter) were unambiguously
identified using more precise
aberration-corrected high-resolution
transmission electron microscopy.
However, they were found inside of
double-walled carbon nanotubes
Properties
1. Strength:-
5. Thermal
All nanotubes are expected to be
very good thermal conductors along
the tube, exhibiting a property known
as "ballistic conduction", but good
insulators laterally to the tube axis.
Measurements show that a SWNT has
a room-temperature thermal
conductivity along its axis of about
3500 W·m−1·K−1; compare this to
copper, a metal well-known for its
good thermal conductivity, which
transmits 385 W·m−1·K−1. A SWNT
has a room-temperature thermal
conductivity across its axis (in the
radial direction) of about 1.52
W·m−1·K−1,] which is about as
thermally conductive as soil. The
temperature stability of carbon
nanotubes is estimated to be up to
2800 °C in vacuum and about 750 °C
in air
Defe
cts
As with any material, the existence
of a crystallographic defect affects
the material properties. Defects can
occur in the form of
atomic vacancies. High levels of such
defects can lower the tensile
strength by up to 85%. Another form
of carbon nanotube defect is
the Stone Wales defect, which
creates a pentagon and heptagon pair
by rearrangement of the bonds.
Because of the very small structure
of CNTs, the tensile strength of the
tube is dependent on its weakest
segment in a similar manner to a
chain, where the strength of the
weakest link becomes the maximum
strength of the chain.
Crystallographic defects also affect
the tube's electrical properties. A
common result is lowered
conductivity through the defective
region of the tube. A defect in
armchair-type tubes (which can
conduct electricity) can cause the
surrounding region to become
semiconducting, and single
monoatomic vacancies induce
magnetic properties.[39]
Crystallographic defects strongly
affect the tube's thermal properties.
Such defects lead
to phonon scattering, which in turn
increases the relaxation rate of the
phonons. This reduces the mean free
path and reduces the thermal
conductivity of nanotube structures.
Phonon transport simulations
indicate that substitutional defects
such as nitrogen or boron will
primarily lead to scattering of high-
frequency optical phonons. However,
larger-scale defects such as Stone
Wales defects cause phonon
scattering over a wide range of
frequencies, leading to a greater
reduction in thermal conductivity.