A single-walled carbon nanotube (CNT) bundle under shock loading in lateral direction is studied by means of
the chain model with reduced number of degrees of freedom. One or two compressive shock waves are initiated
by a piston moving at a constant speed 𝑉0
. At lower piston speeds, only the faster wave front resulting in an
elliptization of CNTs propagates, while at higher speeds this is followed by the slower wave front resulting
in CNT collapse. Time evolution of the CNT bundle structure during compression is investigated in detail.
Energy absorption rate 𝑊 as a function of the piston speed 𝑉0
is evaluated for bundles having CNTs of
different diameter 𝐷. Bundles with smaller CNT diameter demonstrate a higher energy absorption rate scaling
as 𝑊 ∼ 𝐷−3. The rate of energy absorption increases bilinearly with 𝑉0
, and in the regime of CNT collapse
the slope of the line is twice as high as in the case when only elliptization takes place. The obtained results
can be useful for the development of new types of elastic dampers.