Nonlocal shear deformable shell model for thermal postbuckling of axially compressed double-walled carbon nanotubes

An investigation is reported of the thermal buckling and postbuckling of axially compressed double-walled carbon nanotubes (CNTs) subjected to a uniform temperature rise. The double-walled carbon nanotube is modeled as a nonlocal shear deformable cylindrical shell, which contains small-scale effects and van der Waals interaction forces. The governing equations are based on higher order shear deformation shell theory with a von Karman-Donnell-type of kinematic nonlinearity and include thermal effects. Temperature-dependent material properties, which come from molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, and an initial point defect, which is simulated as a dimple on the tube wall, are both taken into account. The small-scale parameter, e0a, is estimated by matching the buckling temperature of CNTs observed from the MD simulation results with the numerical results obtained from the nonlocal shear deformable shell model. The numerical illustrations concern the thermal postbuckling response of perfect and imperfect, single- and double-walled CNTs with different values of compressive load ratio. The results show that buckling temperature and postbuckling behavior of nanotubes are very sensitive to the small-scale parameter. The results reveal that temperature-dependent material properties have a significant effect on the thermal postbuckling behavior of both single- and double-walled CNTs.