Vibrational Analysis of Wavy Atomic Structures of Single Walled Boron Nitride Nanotube

The use of composite materials increases due to its exceptionally better mechanical properties compared to their individual constitutes. The use of Nano materials as one of the constitutes of composite materials adds the advantages specially of high dynamic behavior due to their dimensions of nano scale. The carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and boron nitride nanotubes (BNNTs) possess excellent mechanical properties. The biocompatibility and bio-safety of BNNTs make them more suitable material as compared to CNTs, specially in the field of bio-medicine. The atomic structure of nanotubes is not always defect free, generally atomic vacancies, extended line vacancies and waviness are the common defects of the atomic structure of nanotubes. In this work, the wavy atomic structure of BNNTs is analyzed considering the sinusoidal waviness, for their vibrational behavior. The continuum solid model (hollow tube) of nanotube has been consider with effective wall thickness, which can approximate the real atomic structure of the nanotube for further finite element (FE) based simulation analysis using FE analysis software package. The variation in natural frequency and different mode shapes have been analyzed for the different lengths of the single walled BNNTs, with different degree of waviness in the atomic structure. The obtained results depict that as the length of the nanotube increases the natural frequency of single walled BNNT decreases and as the degree of waviness increases the natural frequency of the nanotube increases for the particular length of the nanotube. Thus, the nanotube with smaller length and higher degree of waviness can have high frequency dynamic behavior. The obtained results can be utilized for the practical realization of nano-mechanical sensor system made up of wavy atomic structure of single walled BNNTs, which can sense the mass of atomic scale.