Free vibration of a single-walled carbon nanotube based on the nonlocal Timoshenko beam model

Free vibration of a single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) embedded in an elastic medium is studied on the basis of the nonlocal Timoshenko beam model. Influences of the slenderness ratios, the boundary conditions, the atomic structures and the stiffness of the embedded medium on the natural frequencies and mode shapes of SWCNT are examined. The nonlocal effect is significant for the higher modes of SWCNT with a small slenderness ratio embedded in a soft elastic medium, and it softens the SWCNT except for the fundamental frequency of the clamped-free SWCNT.