Compression-driven collapse of nanotubes

Abstract Nanotubes are prone to collapsing under compression due to the competition between the bending stiffness of the walls and the van der Waals interactions. The different radial morphologies during collapse may affect the electrical properties of nanotube, which may find promising potential applications in strain engineering. In this paper, the finite-deformation model is introduced to determine the radial morphologies, energy barrier and radial deformability of a nanotube under compression, in which the adhesion interactions are analytically obtained. The analytical solutions of the radial morphologies during compression are consistent with the molecular dynamics simulations results, indicating the effectiveness of the finite-deformation model. The analytical results reveal that both the energy barrier and the radial deformability show a decreasing tendency with the increase of the nanotube diameter.