Electromechanical buckling analysis of boron nitride nanotube using molecular dynamic simulation

• Published in: Chinese journal of physics (Taipei) Vol. 67; pp. 212 - 221
• Main Authors: Zeighampour, Hamid, beni, YaghoubTadi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 01.10.2020
• Subjects: Boron nitride nanotubes; Electric field; Molecular dynamics simulation; The axial electromechanical buckling; The axial electromechanical buckling; Electric field; Molecular dynamics simulation; Boron nitride nanotubes
• ISSN: 0577-9073
• DOI: 10.1016/j.cjph.2020.07.008

•Electro-mechanical buckling of Boron Nitride nanotubes (BNNTs) has been investigated.•The effect of chirality on the critical loads, zigzag and armchair BNNTs were utilized.•The electric field creates axial buckling in the zigzag nanotubes.•The electric field creates torsional buckling in the armchair nanotubes. In this paper, the effect of electric field on axial buckling of boron nitride nanotubes is investigated. For this purpose, molecular dynamics simulation and continuum mechanics are used for the first time simultaneously. In molecular dynamics simulation, the potential between boron nitride atoms is considered as Tersoff and Timoshenko beam theory is used in continuum mechanics. In this paper, buckling of zigzag and armchair boron nitride nanotubes are investigated. Here, the effects of the electric field and the length of the boron nitride nanotube on the critical load are investigated and it is shown that the effect of the electric field is different with respect to the arrangement of atoms in the boron nitride nanotubes. In fact, the electric field creates axial and torsional loads on the zigzag and armchair nanotube, respectively. Axial buckling of the zigzag nanotube is dependent on the electric field, whereas in the armchair nanotubes, the electric field changes have no effect on the axial buckling. To better understand the impact of the electric field on axial buckling, these results are compared with the continuum mechanics.