Buckling of carbon nanotubes: a literature survey

This survey paper comprises 5 sections. In Section 1, the reader is introduced to the world of carbon nanotubes where their structural form and properties are highlighted. Section 2 presents the various buckling behaviors exhibited by carbon nanotubes that are discovered by carbon nanotube researchers. The main factors, such as dimensions, boundary conditions, temperature, strain rate and chirality, influencing the buckling behaviors are discussed in Section 3. Section 4 presents the continuum models, atomistic simulations and experimental techniques in studying the buckling phenomena of carbon nanotubes. A summary as well as recommendations for future research are given in Section 5. Finally a large body of papers, over 200, is given in the reference section. It is hoped that this survey paper will provide the foundation knowledge on carbon nanotube buckling and inspire researchers to advance the modeling, simulation and design of carbon nanotubes for practical applications.