Stability analysis of single-walled carbon nanotubes embedded in winkler foundation placed in a thermal environment considering the surface effect using a new refined beam theory

Abstract

This article is devoted to investigate the stability of different types of Single Walled Carbon Nanotubes (SWCNTs) such as zigzag, chiral, and armchair types which are rested in Winkler elastic foundations exposing to both the low and high temperature environments. Also, the Surface effects which include surface energy and surface residual stresses, are taken into consideration in this study. It may be noted that the surface energy aids in the increase of the flexural rigidity whereas the surface residual stresses act as distributed transverse load. Further, the proposed model is developed by considering a novel refined beam theory namely one variable first order shear deformation beam theory along with the Hamilton’s principle. Navier’s method has been implemented to find out the critical buckling loads for Hinged-Hinged (H-H) boundary condition for zigzag, chiral, and armchair types of SWCNTs. A parametric study is also conducted to report the influence of various scaling parameters like small scale parameters, change in temperature, Winkler stiffness, and length to diameter ratio on critical buckling loads. Also, the present model is validated by comparing the results with other published work.