Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2011
In this work we use classical molecular dynamics to study strain rate and temperature dependent plasticity of carbon nanotube (CNT) under compressive strain. We focus on two types of defects: sp3 bond formation and bond rotation. Our simulation shows that thermal fluctuations help the strained CNT to overcome the local energy barrier to obtain plastic deformation. The yielding strain of a compressed CNT found to be strain-rate and temperature dependent, and low strain rate limit of the yielding strain is estimated to be less that 6%.