An efficient numerical method for analyzing the thermal effects on the vibration of embedded single-walled carbon nanotubes based on the nonlocal shell model

ABSTRACT

Employing the variational differential quadrature (VDQ) method, the effects of initial thermal loading on the vibrational behavior of embedded single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) based on the nonlocal shell model are studied. According to the first-order shear deformation theory and considering Eringen's nonlocal elasticity theory, the energy functionality of the system is presented and discretized using the VDQ method. The effects of thermal loading and elastic foundation are simultaneously taken into account. The use of the numerical discretization technique in the context of variational formulation reduces the order of differentiation in the governing equations and consequently improves the convergence rate. The accuracy of the present model is first checked by comparison with molecular dynamics simulation results and those of other methods. The effects of involved parameters are then investigated on the fundamental frequencies of thermally preloaded embedded SWCNTs. The results imply that the thermal loading has a significant effect on the vibration analysis of embedded SWCNTs.

KEYWORDS:

• Single-walled carbon nanotube
• free vibration
• nonlocal shell model
• variational formulation
• thermal loading