NANOGEARS

S.Karthik Raja1, C.Vignesh Kumar2.

B.E.Mechanical Engineering,Sri Eshwar College Of Engineering,
KinathuKadavu,Coimbatore.
Contact no: 99769-81568, Email id: Kargow66@gmail.com1.
Contact no: 85269-59993, Email id: vigneshkumar1901@gmail.com2.

ABSTRACT:
Nanotechnology is an emerging field
which offers wide scope for research. Owing
to the need for decrease in device design, the
use of molecular level theories and modeling
has become increasingly important in
todays world. Nanoscale structures are
assuming more significance as they provide
the basis for instruments with reduced size,
power, mass, friction and other enhanced
capabilities.
This paper gives an idea about the
synthesis of nanogears using Carbon
Nanotubes and Benzyne. Here, CNT acts as
shaft and Benzyne as the teeth of the gear.
The rotational dynamics of Nanogears and
their isothermal dynamics are also
discussed.
First, an ideal case is studied wherein
gears are made to run in vacuum, which
produces heat due to friction. This can be
reduced to a certain extent by using gas as a
medium for rotation of Nanogears. Various
other operations are also studied.

INTRODUCTION TO NANOGEARS
Carbon Nanotube is a one-dimensional
fullerene (a convex cage of atoms with only
hexagonal and/or pentagonal faces) with a

cylindrical shape. Carbon Nanotubes which

were discovered in 1991 by Sumio Iijima
resemble rolled up graphite although they
cannot be really made that way. Depending
on the direction that the tubes appear to have
been rolled (quantified by the chiral

vector), they are known to act as

conductors or semiconductors.
The unique properties of fullerenes are
used in dimension and topology design of
various Nano devices and molecular
machinery parts. Multiwalled Carbon
Nanotubes act as shafts and benzyne
molecules bonded onto the Nanotube act as
gearteeth.Carbon Nanotubes have many
attractive electronic, optical, magnetic and
mechanical properties. Recently, IBM
scientists have succeeded in positioning
individual molecules at room temperatures
by purely mechanical means. They used
extremely fine tip of STM to position
organic molecules having a total of 173
atoms and diameter of 1.5 nm. A simple
approach is to bond rigid planar benzyne
molecules to large fullerences or carbon
molecules. However, if multiple benzyne
molecules could be added to nanotubes at
controlled sites, the resulting products would
resemble molecular paddle wheel or gears
and thus serve as useful components for
nanotechnology machines.

HOW ARE NANO GEAR

SYNTHESIZED?
In a Nanogear, Carbon Nanotube acts as a
shaft while benzyne molecules bonded on
the Nanotube act as gearteeth. A benzyne
molecule is given an initial velocity toward
a Nanotube. If velocity is too small, a nonreactive collision is observed that appears to
be elastic. A reactive collision to bond
benzyne onto Nanotube occurs if in
appropriate initial velocity is given.
Two types of products from reactive
collisions of benzyne and Nanotube are
observed (1,2 and 1,4 adducts ) for energy
minimized structures.Both 1,2 and 1,adducts
are stable but 1,4 adduct is of slightly lower

energy. The 1,2 adduct is more stable for

smaller diameters and less stable for larger
diameters.

HOW DO NANOGEARS ROTATE?

One gear must be powered to rotate;

Lasers may be used to rotate the end atoms
of a molecular gear . The rotational motion
of end atoms of one nanotube could be
induced by adding charges to the tube ends
and applying one or two oscillating Laser
fields, powered gear can be modeled by
giving its tube
end atoms an
angular velocity.
Once the end
atoms are driven
to rotate, strain
between them and
neighbouring
atoms will be
induced. In order
to release strain,
neighbouring
atoms must rotate
with the end
atoms. Rotational Momentum is transferred
to all other atoms and the gear is powered to
rotate because of inter-atomic interactions.
Since such interactions use strong bonded
forces, one can expect very effective
momentum transfer and very high rotation
rate.
ROTATION DYNAMICS OF GEARS IN
VACUUM
The gears are first placed in vacuum.
The gears should work well in vacuum since
there is no drag to resist their rotation. But
the heat generated by friction cannot be
removed. The accumulated heat cannot be
removed which eventually destroys the
gears.
The gears initially are at a minimized
energy state at 200K.Powered atom input
angular velocity is increased linearly from 0
to .2rpps(revolution per ps) in the first 10ps
and then stayed at .2rpps .Then again at 50ps
the gears started rotation with a linearly
increasing rate from 0 to .05 rpps. During

this period, heat is accumulated and

temperature is increased from 200K to
600K.The gears are found to work very
well.

Left: Rotation rate vs. time;

Right: gear temperature vs. time
Black line-input rate,
Red line-measured rate based on the
powered gear teeth;
Blue line-measured rate based on the driven
gear teeth;
But, heat resulting from gear atom friction
accumulated as the temperature is increased
> than 1000K after 30ps.At higher
temperatures, input energy could not be
effectively converted into rotational motion.
At this state, gears only wiggled and the
measured rotation rate is decreased. Suppose
if the input rate is again increased from .2
to .3rpps from 50 to 60ps, the gears resumed
rotation and the measured
rate also
increased. Increasing temperature (~2000k)

forced the gears to return to the wiggling

state with decreasing measured rate. At this
high temperature, continuing to increase
input rate fail to rotate gears.
Gears cannot work at high
temperature. The critical temperature is
about 600 to 1000k; gears cannot work well
below this temperature. It is to be noted that
no tooth or bond breakage occurs up to at
least 3000k.

about .1 rpps(input rate of .4rpps).Beyond

this rate, slip occurs as the rotation rate
continues to increase or stays at a higher
value for the powered gear and the rotation
rate of the driven gear decreases. When the
gears slip, inter-gear energy and bonded
internal energy jump to a higher value. But
this jump does not signify bond breaking
because of the energy state and start
working again. This offers an operational
advantage.
When the rotation rate approaches
Temperature Time
Speed
Statementthe critical value of 0.1 rpps, the benzyne
molecular teeth start tilting. This tilting
Uure
200K
Upto 10ps 0-.2 rpps
Efficient allows the gear teeth to slip at the expense of
both inter-gear and intra-gear energy.
200-600K Upto
Increasing
50 ps
rate of 0-.05 rpps
Efficient Rotational kinetic energy of the gear teeth is
a function of diameter of the gear and
rotation rate. If the rotational kinetic energy
After 30 ps
Friction is greater than tilting energy at 20deg.,
>1000 K
major tilting and slip occur. If the kinetic
2000 K
50-60
No effective
ps .2 - conversion
.3 rpps
of input energy;
of the
gears
energy wiggling
is less than
tilting energy at 10
deg., gears will rotate steadily and safely.
Operation is prohibited when the rotation
rate is larger than .15 rpps and tilting is
larger than 20 deg.
ROTATION OF GEARS AT VARIOUS
TEMPERATURES AND SPEEDS
ISOTHERMAL ROTATION DYNAMICS
OF GEARS IN VACUUM
Constant temperature is maintained for
gears to work. Constant temperature is often
obtained by an artificial thermostat (controls
temperature by heat transfer).Such a model
system provide information on isothermal
dynamics without any coolant gear
molecular interactions.
In the first 120ps, the measured
rotation rate of the two gears increases with
the increased input rate and the average
values for the two gears are basically found
to be same.
The gears work well at constant
room temperature until the measured rate is

ROTATION OF GEARS IN A GAS:

Success in operating Nanotube-based
gears so far was based on the control of
temperature (achieved by a software
thermostat in vacuum).To improve a
coolant, gas is used instead of thermostat.
But the difficulty is that gas resists rotation.
When the gas temperature is much lower
than the gear temperature, higher kinetic
energy of the gas leads to faster cooling and
more drag.
The gears are placed in the center of
a box of 2000 gas atoms. The dimensions of
the box can be adjusted to change gas
pressure or gas density. The gas atom type
also can be changed from the input. No
artificial thermostat is used for the gears.
The gas, whose temperature is controlled by
a software thermostat, removes the heat of
the gears.
The initial temperature of the gears is
150 K. Since the end atoms in the powered
gears are in cold-end conditions, the rotation
rate is same for the powered gears. Angular
velocity increases linearly from 0 to .05 rpps
and then remains constant. By comparing
the rotation rate of secondary gears, it can be
seen that the operation of the gears after 100
ps is much better in gas than in vacuum.
The fluctuation of the measured rate
of the second gear around that of the first
gear is very small for gas-gear system, but it
is very large for gear-vacuum system. The
gears work much better with gas coolant
than in vacuum because of the role of gas in
cooling the gears. The gear temperature
keeps increasing in vacuum, but it is
controlled to some extent in gas.
OPERATING GEAR SYSTEMS:
If the gear temperature is less than
1000k,a trial and error procedure could be
used to determine gear operation condition
without any fear of destroying the gears. If

the tilting energy at several angles ( say

10deg ,20deg ) are properly estimated and
rotation rate is chosen such that the rotation
energy is less than the tilting energy, then
the gear systems would work well without
any slip. If cold-end atoms drive the
powered gears, the operation will be easier
since the input rate and the rotation rate of
the teeth of the powered gears is the same.
MULTIPLE TEETH GEARS
Two types of gears with multiple rows
of 1,2 teeth(as shown in fig) have identical
nanotubes to the gears previously seen. The
critical slip rate of .1 rpps is observed again.
In addition the ratio of the input to measured
rate is similar as that of single row teeth.
Multiple teeth gears occasionally exert
counter- rotational forces on each other as
the gear tooth sometimes will not mesh
properly. In proper working conditions, the
teeth will inter face to face. As a special
case, in multiple rows of inline teeth, the
teeth will interface in a T-configuration.
Here the vertical part of the T will exert a
counter-rotational force on the tooth
representing the horizontal portion of the T
and the gears tend to chatter.

MULTIPLE TEETH GEARS

that of the gear, it takes more power for the

gear to drive the shaft.

Rotation rate vs. time;

Left: For on-line tooth gears ;
Right: For off-line tooth gear
Green - input, red - measured for powered
gear, white - measured for driven gear
GEAR AND SHAFT
Two types of operations are
performed in hot end conditions. One is for
powering the gear to drive the shaft thereby
onverting rotational motion to translational
motion; the other to convert translatory
motion of the shaft into rotation of the gear.
In the latter case, a constant linear velocity
is supplied to the atoms at one end of the
shaft. In either case the gear-shaft system
work well. But it takes more input energy to
convert these two types of mechanical
motion than one gear driving another gear.
The ratio of the input rate to the measured
rate is about 5 for the shaft driving the gear
and around 11 for the gear driving the shaft.
Since the mass of the shaft is almost twice

Rotation rate vs. time

Left: shaft drives gear;
Right: gear drives shaft.
Green line - input,
Red line- measured for powered gear,
White line- measured for driven gear
CONCLUSION
Nanotechnology is an emerging
field which refers to the technogical
developments on nanometer scale
(.1 to 100 nm)
Nanogear
is
an
important
component which could be fed as
raw material to arrange atoms to
constuct a matter compiler
Nanotubes exhibit a variety of
unique properties which makes
them well suited for many
applications of interest.
The gears will work if temperature
is lower than 600-1000k and

rotational energy is less than the

teeth tilting energy at 20deg.
The predominant mechanism of
gear failure is slipping due to teeth
tilting.
Gears
will
resume
functioning if the slipped gears are
slowed down. Therefore a trial and
error procedure can be used to find
the
optimized
operational
conditions
(without
fear
of
destroying gears).
A coolant gas can probably control
the gear temperature.

The design space of all potential gears is

quite large. Some of the parameters that
control the design space:
Diameter of gears
Length of gears
Distance between gears
Temperature
Rotation rate
Rotation rate acceleration

Molecular fragment used for teeth

Nearby molecules
Coolant molecules temperature and
pressure
The operating characteristics of the gears
appear to change throughout this space.
Nanotechnology is expected to usher
a new revolution in space research. Using
this technique even small items like dirt,
sand etc can be turned into computer chips
by molecular arrangement!
REFERENCES:
1. Thomas
W.Ebbesen,Carbon
Nanotubes.
2. Richard Jaffe, Jie Han, and Al
Globus,Formation
of
Carbon
Nanotube based gears.
3. Nanotechnology:
Atomically
precise gears and bearings, by
K.Eric Drexler.