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Bending stiffness calculation for nanosize structures
Advances in high technologies using nanometer-size structures, such as carbon nanotubes, require calculation of mechanical properties for the objects of the nanosize scale level. Majority of the theoretical mechanical models for nanoobjects is based on the macroscopic equations of theory of elasticity. This gives the questions about applicability of the quantities obtained from the macroscopic experiments to the nanoscale objects or about necessity of corrections taking into account the scale effects. The presented paper is devoted to theoretical investigation of the influence of the scale effects on the bending stiffness of a nanocrystal, which is extended in one direction and has a limited number of atomic layers in another direction. Ambiguity of the bending stiffness due to the ambiguity of the size definition for the nanosize object is discussed. It is shown that appropriate definition of the crystal thickness allows using conventional formula for the bending stiffness, which is known from continuum theory of elasticity.