NON-LINEAR FINITE ELEMENT MODELING OF MECHANICAL BEHAVIOR OF SINGLE-WALLED CUBIC ZIRCONIA NANOTUBES.

Due to some unique properties, zirconia nanotube is one of the inorganic nanotubes
that are attracting interest because of its structural capabilities with wide scale
potential applications. However information on some mechanical properties of
zirconia nanotubes is not readily available and difficult to determine due to several
constraints. In this study, first principles calculations based on molecular dynamics
was used to predict the bulk mechanical properties of Zr02 which were later utilized
as input data for continuum analysis. Multilinear Isotropic Hardening model was used
to develop the 3D structures of zirconia nanotubes having different chirality and were
exposed to different boundary conditions for non-linear finite element analysis. The
simulated results vary with the zigzag nanotubes having the optimum properties and
were inversely proportional to the diameter, length and thickness.