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.