On the Buckling Behavior of Curved Carbon Nanotubes

Abstract

In this study, numerous armchair and zigzag single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) were simulated by a commercial finite element package and their buckling behavior was investigated through performing several computational tests with cantilevered boundary conditions and different bending angles. Both computational and analytical results were compared in the case of straight tubes. It was pointed out that the computational results are in good agreement with the analytical calculations. It was also concluded that the first critical buckling load of both straight armchair and zigzag CNTs increases by increasing the chiral number. In addition, it was indicated that the first critical buckling load of straight CNTs decreases by introducing the bending angle to the structure of CNTs. However, this decrease is more noticeable in the case of armchair and zigzag CNTs with higher number of chirality and it is almost negligible for CNTs with lower number of chirality.