ABSTRACT
Recently, the interest on the mechanical properties of materials at the nanoscale level has been remarkably growing. Just in the last few decades, material scientists have been able to make direct measurements at such a critical size scale, three orders of magnitude smaller than the more known and accessible microscale. An example is given by the exceptional mechanical properties observed in nanotubes (Ross, 1991; Treacy et al., 1996; Yakobson et al., 1996, 1997; Yakobson and Smalley, 1997) since their re-discovery (see Pugno 2008) by Sumio Iijima (1991) and other scientists (Chopra et al., 1995; Weng-Sieh et al., 1995; Loiseau et al., 1996). e tremendous mechanical properties coupled with the exceptional electronic ones lead to consider nanoscale materials as optimal candidates for innovative materials (e.g., bio-inspired), for biomechanical applications (e.g., nanorobots), or electronics (e.g., nanoelectromechanical systems) (see the review by Qian et al. 2002).
