Flexural wave dispersion in multi-walled carbon nanotubes conveying fluids

Motivated by the great potential of carbon nanotubes for developing nanouidic devices, this paper presents a nonlocal elastic, Timoshenko multi-beam model with the second order of strain gradient taken into consideration and derives the corresponding dispersion relation of exural wave in multi-walled carbon nanotubes conveying uids. The study shows that the moving flow reduces the phase velocity of exural wave of the lowest branch in carbon nanotubes. The phase velocity of exural wave of the lowest branch decreases with an increase of flow velocity. However, the effects of flow velocity on the other branches of the wave dispersion are not obvious. The effect of microstructure characterized by nonlocal elasticity on the dispersion of exural wave becomes more and more remarkable with an increase in wave number.