Buckling Analysis of a Double-Walled Carbon Nanotube Embedded in an Elastic Medium Using the Energy Method

Abstract

The axially compressed buckling of a double-walled carbon nanotabe surrounded by an elastic medium using the energy and the Rayleigh-Ritz methods is investigated in this paper. In this research, based on the elastic shell models at nano scale, the effects of the van der Waals forces between the inner and the outer tubes, the small scale and the surrounding elastic medium on the critical buckling load are considered. Normal stresses at the outer tube medium interface are also included in the current analysis. An expression is derived relating the external pressure to the buckling mode number, from which the critical pressure can be obtained. It is seen from the results that the critical pressure is dependent on the outer radius to thickness ratio, the material parameters of the surrounding elastic medium such as Young’s modulus and Poisson’s ratio. Moreover, it is shown that the critical pressure descend very quickly with increasing the half axial wave numbers.