Modeling of the microstructure of carbon nanotube with two nonlocal elasticity theories.

In this paper, a detailed theoretical study on the dispersion of waves in carbon nanotubes (CNTs) is presented. For this purpose, CNTs are considered as nonlocal elastic thin cylindrical shells. The Eringen's nonlocal elasticity theory is used for modeling the microstructure of CNT such that the proximity of the mathematical model to the actual atomic structure of CNT is retained. The results are compared with the results that are obtained based on the second-order strain-gradient elasticity (SG) theory. It has been shown that the SG theory is the first approximation of nonlocal continuum elasticity (NC) theory, which is used in the present paper. Also, it has been shown that the bending rigidity has important effect in the dispersion of waves in CNTs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]