Length dependence of critical measures in single-walled carbon nanotubes

This paper presents an investigation on the buckling behaviour of single-walled carbon nanotubes under various loading conditions (compression, bending and torsion) and unveils several aspects concerning the dependence of critical measures (axial strain, bending curvature and twisting angle) on the nanotube length. The buckling results are obtained by means of an atomistic-scale generalized beam theory (GBT) that incorporates local deformation of the nanotube cross-section by means of independent and orthogonal deformation modes. Moreover, some estimates are also obtained by means of non-linear shell finite element analyses using Abaqus code. After classifying the buckling modes of thin-walled tubes (global, local and distortional), the paper addresses the importance of the two-wave distortional mode (flattening or ovalization mode) in their structural behaviour. Then, the well known expression to determine the critical strain of compressed nanotubes, which is based on Donnell theory for shallow shells, is shown to be inadequate for moderately long tubes due to warping displacements appearing in the distortional buckling modes. After that, an in-depth study on the buckling behaviour of nanotubes under compression, bending and torsion is presented. The variation of the critical kinematic measures (axial strain, bending curvature and twisting angle) with the tube length is thoroughly investigated. Concerning this dependence, some uncertainties that exist in the specific literature are meticulously explained, a few useful expressions to determine critical measures of nanotubes are proposed and the results are compared with available data collected from several published works (most of them, obtained from molecular dynamics simulations).