Buckling Analysis of Carbon Nanotubes – Application of a concurrent atomistic-continuum multiscale approach

In this work, a concurrent atomistic-continuum multiscale approach is applied in order to analyse the buckling behaviour of carbon nanotubes. In particular, the bridging domain method that is grounded on an overlapping domain partitioning scheme with an energy-based blending of the subdomains is used. The atomistic subdomain is modelled by means of a molecular statics approach and the continuum subdomain is handled using the finite element method. Outcomes of numerical simulations of defective single-walled carbon nanotubes under bending load are presented. More specifically, the impact of variably located Stone-Wales defects on the buckling behaviour of a nanotube is studied using the concurrent multiscale approach. The results of the multiscale model are validated against a full atomistic molecular statics simulation