Investigation on Size Effect of Cantilever Carbon Nanotube

Nonlocal elastic shell model based on the semi-moment theory is developed and applied to investigate the small scale effect on the bending problem of the cantilever carbon nanotube (CNT) with a vertical concentrated load applied at its tip. The small-scale effect is taken into account and is incorporated in the formulation. Analytical expressions of the stress are derived for the nonlocal elastic bending problem. It is obvious to observe significant small-scale effects on the stress resultants. The smaller the radius is, the more obvious the scale effect appears. The numerical results show that the scale effect cannot be ignored for CNTs of small radius.