Buckling behavior of short multi-walled carbon nanotubes under axial compression loads

We investigate the buckling behaviors of short multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) under axial compression by using molecular mechanics (MM) simulations. The effects of the number of walls, length and chiral angle of MWCNTs on the buckling behaviors are examined. The results show that the buckling behaviors of short MWCNTs are rather different from single walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) and slender MWCNTs. Moreover, it is observed that the buckling strains of short MWCNTs vary inversely proportional to the number of nanotube walls. For slender MWCNTs, the buckling strains fluctuate as the number of walls increase. It increases for beam-like buckling mode, decreases for shell-like buckling mode and is approximately constant for the shell-beam-like buckling mode. The increase in the length of MWCNT has also led to a significant decrease of the buckling strain for short MWCNTs. However, chirality does not have a significant effect on the buckling strain of MWCNTs nor alter the buckling mode of short MWCNTs.