AXIALLY CRITICAL LOAD OF MULTIWALL CARBON NANOTUBES UNDER THERMAL ENVIRONMENT

ABSTRACT

The axially compressed buckling of multiwall carbon nanotubes under thermal environment is studied. The effects of temperature changes and van der Waals interaction forces between the inner and outer walls of nanotubes are taken into account. From the point of view of continuum modeling, an elastic multilayer shell model considering van der Waals forces is presented for the axially compressed buckling of multiwall carbon nanotubes under thermal environment. Based on this model, some example calculations are carried out to describe the effect of temperature changes on the axially critical load of multiwall carbon nanotubes. Finally, some results obtained show that the axial buckling stress of multiwalled carbon nanotubes under thermal environment is dependent on the wave number of axially buckling modes, and the wave numbers corresponding to the minimum axial stress are not unique for the multiwall carbon nanotubes under thermal environments.

Keywords:

• axially critical load
• multiwall carbon nanotubes
• thermal environment