Enhanced mechanical properties of prestressed multi-walled carbon nanotubes

A study was conducted to investigate techniques and methods of enhancing mechanical properties of prestressed multi-walled carbon nanotubes (PMWCT). The study focused on enhancing mechanical properties of MWCTs, without significantly reducing its tensile strength, or tensile stiffness. It focused on using a new class of MWCTs that have smaller interwall spacings, as compared with the normal MWCTs, to obtain a solution to the problem of enhancing mechanical properties of prestressed MWCTs. Several lines of atoms were removed from the outer in the double-walled carbon nanotube, equilibrating the system at 500 K. The vacancies in the graphite lattice were healed and the interwall spacing was reduced with better sp² bonding structure. The results show that PMWCTs can be produced at a significantly lower cost.