Fracture Behavior of Carbon Nanotubes Containing Crack: Theoretical and Molecular Dynamics Analysis

A theoretical model for predicting fracture behavior of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) with the effects of temperature and strain rate is presented based on kinetic analysis of fracture. The influences of assuming defects including a single crack, horizontal and vertical parallel double cracks in the CNTs are also discussed using quantized fracture mechanics (QFM) theory and molecular dynamics method (MD). Our analysis shows that the MD simulated strengths clearly follow the 1+ n −1/2 dependence predicted by QFM at a broad temperature range from 300 K to 4000 K. Compared with the MD results, the proposed theoretical model can give a reasonable prediction for the fracture behavior of the carbon nanotubes with a single crack, horizontal and vertical parallel double cracks.