Effect of small size on dispersion characteristics of wave in carbon nanotubes

Effect of small size on dispersion characteristics of waves in multi-walled carbon nanotubes is investigated using an elastic shell model. Dynamic governing equations of the carbon nanotube are formulated on the basis of nonlocal elastic theory. The relationship between wavenumber and frequency of wave propagation is obtained from the solution of the eigenvalue equations. The numerical results show that the dispersion characteristics of wave in the multi-walled carbon nanotube are affected by the small size. Effect of small size is not obvious for the smaller wavenumber, and it will arise and increase gradually with the increase of the wavenumber. Effect of the small size will decrease as the inner radius of carbon nanotubes increases. In addition, the explicit expressions of the cut-off frequencies are derived. The results show that the cut-off frequencies cannot be influenced by the small size of carbon nanotubes. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.