Surface and small scale effects on the dynamic buckling of carbon nanotubes with smart layers assuming structural damping

Abstract

In this paper, dynamic buckling of a smart sandwich nanotube is studied. The nanostructure is composed of a carbon-nanotube with inner and outer surfaces coated with ZnO piezoelectric layers, which play the role of sensor and actuator. Nanotube is under magnetic field and ZnO layers are under electric field. The nanostructure is located in a viscoelastic environment, which is assumed to obey Visco-Pasternak model. Non-local piezo-elasticity theory is used to consider the small-scale effect, and Kelvin model is used to describe the structural damping effects. Surface stresses are taken into account based on Gurtin-Murdoch theory. Hamilton principle in conjunction with zigzag shear-deformation theory is used to obtain the governing equations. The governing equations are then solved using the differential quadrature method, to determine dynamic stability region of the nanostructure. To validate the analysis, the results for simpler case studies are compared with others reported in the literature. Then, the effect of various parameters such as small-scale, surface stresses, Visco-Pasternak environment and electric and magnetic fields on the dynamic stability region is investigated. The results show that considering the surface stresses leads to an increase in the excitation frequency and the dynamic stability region happens at higher frequencies.