Applicability and limitations of simplified elastic shell equations for carbon nanotubes

This paper examines applicability and limitations of simplified models of elastic cylindrical shells for carbon nanotubes. The simplified models examined here include Donnell equations and simplified Flugge equations characterized by an uncoupled single equation for radial deflection. These simplified elastic shell equations are used to study static buckling and free vibration of carbon nanotubes, with detailed comparison to exact Flugge equations of cylindrical shells. It is shown that all three elastic shell models are in excellent agreement (with relative errors less than 5%) with recent molecular dynamics simulations for radial breathing vibration modes of carbon nanotubes, while reasonable agreements for various buckling problems have been reported previously for Donnell equations. For general cases of buckling and vibration, the results show that the simplified Flugge model, which retains mathematical simplicity of Donnell model, is consistently in better agreement with exact Flugge equations than Donnell model, and has a significantly enlarged range of applicability for carbon nanotubes. In particular, the simplified Flugge model is applicable for carbon nanotubes (with relative errors around 10% or less) in almost all cases of physical interest, including some important cases in which Donnell model results in much larger errors. These results are significant for further application of elastic shell models to carbon nanotubes because simplified shell models, characterized by a single uncoupled equation for radial deflection, are particularly useful for multiwall carbon nanotubes of large number of layers.