Nonlocal effect on axially compressed buckling of triple-walled carbon nanotubes under temperature field

This paper studies the small scale effect on the buckling behaviors of triple-walled carbon nanotubes (TWCNTs) with the initial axial stress under the temperature field. The TWCNTs are modeled as three elastic shells coupled together through vdW interaction between different layers. Buckling governing equations of CNTs are firstly formulated on the basis of nonlocal elastic theory and the small scale effect on CNTs buckling results with the change of temperature are then achieved. The results show that the critical buckling load is dependent on the temperature, scale parameter and wavenumber. Some conclusions are drawn that small scale effect will arise gradually with the increases of wavenumber, and the temperature can influence the ratio between the nonlocal buckling load and the corresponding local load. Furthermore, with or without effects of nonlocal considered, the same results is obtained that the axial buckling load increases as the value of temperature increases at low and room temperature condition, while at high temperature condition the axial buckling load decreases as the value of temperature increases.