Abstract Submitted to the    NANOTUBE'04 Conference:

The significant increase in the Young's modulus of nanotube-polymer composites is often correlated with the formation of a crystalline layer of polymers surrounding the nanotubes. Although this has been attributed to an improved stress transfer between the stiffer nanotubes and the softer polymer matrix, the actual physical mechanism for this transfer is still unclear. To clarify this matter, we model the polymer-nanotube composite by harmonic chains interacting with a rigid periodic potential, an extension of the so-called Frenkel-Kontorova model. We identify the origin of the reinforcement with the occurrence of a pinning transition, in which sections of the polymer are trapped by the periodic potential of the templating nanotube.