Molecular mechanics and continuum mechanics study of buckling of pre-stressed multi-walled carbon nanotubes

The buckling behaviors of pre-stressed multi-walled carbon nanotube (PS-MWCNT), where the interlayer distance is less than 0.34 nm, are studied using both molecular mechanics (MM) simulations and continuum mechanics. Due to the combined effect of interlayer distance and tube diameter, the buckling membrane force increases as the interlayer distance decreases for PS-MWCNTs with a fixed intertube chirality difference. Similar to normal MWCNTs, the buckling membrane force of the PS-MWCNTs increases with the number of walls for a given innermost tube size. Moreover, the buckling membrane forces predicted by the MM simulations are qualitatively consistent with those from the continuum mechanics model.