Buckling of double-walled carbon nanotubes modeled by solid shell elements

A solid shell element model is proposed for the elastic bifurcation buckling analysis of double-walled carbon nanotubes (DWCNTs) under axial compression. The solid shell element allows for the effect of transverse shear deformation which becomes significant in a stocky DWCNT with relatively small radius-to-thickness ratio. The van der Waals (vdW) interaction between the adjacent walls is simulated by linear springs. Using this solid shell element model, the critical buckling strains of DWCNTs with various boundary conditions are obtained and compared with molecular dynamics results and those obtained by other existing shell and beam models. The results obtained show that the solid shell element is able to model DWCNTs rather well, with the appropriate choice of Young's modulus, tube thickness, and spring constant for modeling the vdW forces. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.