Dynamical behaviors of fluid-conveyed multi-walled carbon nanotubes

Based on an elastic beam model and potential flow theory, and by adopting N-mode Galerkin discretization technique, the dynamical stability behaviors of fluid-conveyed multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) are studied. The influences of the flow inside the innermost tube and the van der Waals (vdW) interaction between any two walls on the instabilities of the CNTs-fluid system are discussed on the numerical simulations in detail. Also, the effects of the innermost tube radius, the length and the layer quantity of MWCNTs on the critical velocities of the destabilized system are intensively analyzed and compared. The results show that the critical velocities increase sharply as the radius becomes larger, the layer quantity increases, and the length decreases. The bifurcations happen in turn of divergence and Hopf types. (C) 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.