Torsional buckling of a double-walled carbon nanotube embedded in an elastic medium

The torsional buckling of a double-walled carbon nanotube embedded in an elastic medium is studied in this paper. The effects of surrounding elastic medium and van der Waals forces between the inner and outer nanotubes are taken into account. Using continuum mechanics, an elastic double-shell model is presented for the torsional buckling of a double-walled carbon nanotube. Based on the model, a condition is derived in terms of the buckling modes of the shell and the parameters describing the effect of van der Waals interaction and surrounding elastic medium. A simplified analysis is also carried out estimate the critical torque for torsional buckling of the double-walled carbon nanotube.