Instability analysis of double-walled carbon nanotubes subjected to axial compression

The buckling of short double-walled carbon nanotubes subjected to compression is investigated through molecular dynamics in the paper. The inner wall is discovered to have helically aligned buckling mode while the outer wall is reported to have shell buckling mode with kinks. Such buckling modes are attributed to the interaction of the two walls via the van der Waals effect. In addition, a buckling strain higher than the buckling strains of two constituent inner and outer walls is found in the double-walled tube within a certain size range. The causes for such a phenomenon are analyzed and discussed.