Strip Algebra is a set of elements and operators for the description of carbon nanotube structures, considered as a subgroup of polyhedra, and more precisely, of polyhedra with vertices formed by three edges.
Strip Algebra was developed initially [1] for the determination of the structure connecting two arbitrary nanotubes, but has also been extended to the connection of three identical nanotubes [2] Graphitic systems are molecules and crystals formed of carbon atoms in sp2 hybridization.
The relation between the number of vertices, edges and faces of any finite polyhedron is given by Euler's polyhedron formula: where e, f and v are the number of edges, faces and vertices, respectively, and g is the genus of the polyhedron, i.e., the number of "holes" in the surface.
A substrip is identified by a pair of natural numbers measuring the position of the last ring in parentheses, together with the turns induced by the defect ring.
These are necessary to find out the combined result of a set of contiguous strips.