Mechanical Engineering Commons^™

Nonlinear Dynamics Of Carbon Nanotubes Under Soft Alternating Current Actuation, Le Luo

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This thesis work deals with electrostatically actuated Carbon Nanotubes (CNTs) cantilevers. Four forces are acting on the CNTs cantilever, namely damping, elastic, electrostatic and van der Waals forces. The van der Waals force is significant for values of 50 nm or lower of the gap between the CNTs and the ground substrate. As both electrostatic and van der Waals forces are nonlinear, and the CNTs electrostatic actuation is given by alternating current (AC) voltage, the CNTs undergo nonlinear parametric dynamics. The Method of Multiple Scales (MMS) and Reduced Order Model (ROM) are employed to investigate the system under soft excitation …