Buckling behavior of carbon nanotubes in longitudinal CNT-PDMS composites

The continuous CNT polymer composites can exhibit both significant stiffness reinforcement and large damping capability in compression, while local buckling is progressively developed along the longitudinal CNT direction in compression. The buckling behavior of CNTs could be at least in part attributed to such damping properties. Thus, the objective of this paper is to study the buckling response of CNT with polymer matrix support. Analytical models, including Euler buckling, Modified Euler buckling and Timoshenko buckling models, are employed to investigate the buckling behavior and the critical buckling stress results are compared. In addition, effect of aspect ratios (L/D) on critical buckling stress is studied. This study provides us with insight to better understand the structure-property relation for such continuous CNT polymer composites in compression.