Mechanical properties of carbon nanotubes Mechanical properties of carbon nanotubes The mechanical properties of carbon nanotubes reveal them as one of the strongest materials in nature. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are long hollow cylinders of graphene. Although graphene sheets have 2D symmetry, carbon nanotubes by geometry have different properties in axial and radial directions. It has been shown that CNTs are very strong in the axial direction. Young's modulus on the order of and tensile strength of were obtained. Carbon nanotubes are the strongest and stiffest materials yet discovered in terms of tensile strength and elastic modulus respectively. This strength results from the covalent sp bonds
Asymmetric carbon for all then-known phenomena of molecular asymmetry (which involved a carbon atom bearing four different atoms or groups). Knowing the number of asymmetric carbon atoms, one can calculate the maximum possible number of stereoisomers for any given molecule as follows: As an example, malic acid has 4 carbon atoms but just one of them is asymmetric. The asymmetric carbon atom is the one attached to two carbon atoms, an oxygen atom, and a hydrogen atom. One may initially be inclined to think this atom is not asymmetric because it is attached to two carbon atoms, but because those two carbon