Investigation on thermoelastic wave propagation in viscoelastic single-walled carbon nanotubes with surface effect based on nonlocal elasticity and G-N theory

In recent years, the influence of size-dependent effect on elastic wave propagation in viscoelastic single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) has been considerably investigated. Due to the excellent thermal conductivity of viscoelastic SWCNTs, it is very meaningful to study the influence of size-dependent effect on thermoelastic wave propagation properties in viscoelastic SWCNTs under thermal environment. Nevertheless, few theoretical investigations have been carried out to predict the thermoelastic wave propagation properties of viscoelastic SWCNTs in the existing literatures. To fill this gap, the present work aims to establish the thermoelastic coupling model for viscoelastic SWCNTs based on the Euler-Bernoulli beam theory by combining the nonlocal elasticity theory and the G-N theory, taking the surface effect into account. By assuming the wave type solutions, the dispersion relationship between frequency (or phase velocity) and wave number is determined. The influences of the nonlocal parameter, the surface effect and the damping coefficient on the thermoelastic wave dispersion relation of viscoelastic SWCNTs at two different diameters are examined and the thermoelastic wave propagation properties are presented graphically.