Mechanical buckling of multi-walled carbon nanotubes: The effects of slenderness ratio

Buckling strengths, in terms of compressive strain, of single-, double- and triple-walled carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are investigated to study the effects of slenderness ratio (S-R) via the molecular dynamics (MD) simulations with the Tersoff potential. Under constant ratio of slenderness, the CNTs with small S-R behave like a continuum shell object. For large S-R's, multi-walled CNTs exhibit the characteristics of the Euler columns. In addition, smaller nanotubes possess higher buckling-resistance. The buckling strength of multi-walled nanotubes is controlled by the size of their outermost shell. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.