SIMULATING DEFLECTION AND DETERMINING STABLE LENGTH OF FREESTANDING CARBON NANOTUBE PROBE/SENSOR IN THE VICINITY OF GRAPHENE LAYERS USING A NANOSCALE CONTINUUM MODEL

Abstract

Herein, the deflection and instability of a freestanding carbon nanotube (CNT) probe/sensor in the vicinity of the graphene layers are investigated. A nanoscale continuum model is employed to obtain nonlinear constitutive equation of freestanding CNT. The van der Waals attraction is computed from the simplified Lennard-Jones potential for two common engineering cases including large and small number of graphene layers. Four approaches, i.e., approximated function, homotopy perturbation method, lumped parameter model and numerical analysis, are employed to solve the governing equation of CNT. The intermolecular force-induced deflection, minimum initial gap and stable length of freestanding CNT are determined. The analytical results agree well with the numerical solutions.