A microstructurally motivated description of the deformation of vertically aligned carbon nanotube structures

Vertically aligned carbon nanotube's extreme compliance and mechanical energy absorption/dissipation capabilities are potentially promising aspects of their multi-functionality. Mathematical models have revealed that a hardening-softening-hardening material relation can capture the unique sequential, periodic buckling behavior displayed by vertically aligned carbon nanotubes under uniaxial compression. Yet the physical origins of these models remain unknown. We provide a microstructure-based motivation for such a phenomenological constitutive relation and use it to explore changes in structural response with nanotube volume fraction.