Influence of structural imperfections—twisting and distortion—on the vibrational behavior of carbon nanotubes

Abstract

Several types of carbon nanotubes in their perfect and imperfect form were simulated, and their vibrational behavior was studied by performing computational examinations with fixed-free boundary conditions. Both computational and analytical results were compared in the case of perfect tubes. Afterward, three kinds of imperfections, that is, twisting angle, z-distortion along the longitudinal axis and xy-distortion along the radial axis, were introduced to the structure of perfect carbon nanotubes, and the natural frequencies of imperfect carbon nanotubes were numerically evaluated and compared with the behavior of the perfect ones. It was concluded that the existence of any type of imperfection in the structure of carbon nanotubes leads to a lower natural frequency and, as a result, lower vibrational stability. However, this trend was more visible for the carbon nanotubes with higher chirality.