• Advances in nano research
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.69-97
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• 2017

In this study, nonlinear response of laminated functionally graded carbon nanotube reinforced composite (FG-CNTRC) plate under low-velocity impact based on the Eshelby-Mori-Tanaka approach in thermal conditions is studied. The governing equations are derived based on higher-order shear deformation plate theory (HSDT) under von $K\acute{a}rm\acute{a}n$ geometrical nonlinearity assumptions. The finite element method with 15 DOF at each node and Newmark's numerical integration method is applied to solve the governing equations. Four types of distributions of the uniaxially aligned reinforcement material through the thickness of the plates are considered. Material properties of the CNT and matrix are assumed to be temperature dependent. Contact force between the impactor and the laminated plate is obtained with the aid of the modified nonlinear Hertzian contact law models. In the numerical example, the effect of layup (stacking sequence) and lamination angle as well as the effect of temperature variations, distribution of CNTs, volume fraction of the CNTs, the mass and the velocity of the impactor in a constant energy level and boundary conditions on the impact response of the CNTRC laminated plates are investigated in details.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.64 no.3
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• pp.381-390
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• 2017

Present paper deals with the large amplitude flexural vibration of carbon nanotube reinforced composite (CNTRC) plates. Distribution of CNTs as reinforcements may be uniform or functionally graded (FG). The equivalent material properties of the composite media are obtained according to a refined rule of mixtures which contains efficiency parameters. To account for the large deformations, von $K{\acute{a}}rm{\acute{a}}n$ type of geometrical nonlinearity is included into the formulation. The matrix representation of the governing equations is obtained according to the Ritz method where the basic shape functions are written in terms of the Chebyshev polynomials. Time dependency of the problem is eliminated by means of the Galerkin method and the resulting nonlinear eigenvalue problem is solved employing a direct displacement control approach. Results are obtained for completely clamped and completely simply supported plates. Results are first validated for the especial cases of FG-CNTRC and cross-ply laminated plates. Afterwards, parametric studies are given for FG-CNTRC plates with different boundary conditions. It is shown that, nonlinear frequencies are highly dependent to the volume fraction and dispersion profiles of CNTs. Furthermore, mode redistribution is observed in both simply supported and clamped FG-CNTRC plates.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.42 no.2
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• pp.243-256
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• 2022

A coupled finite element method (FEM)-boundary element method (BEM) for analyzing the hydroelastic response of functionally graded carbon nanotube-reinforced composite (FG-CNTRC) floating plates under moving loads is firstly introduced in this article. For that aim, the plate displacement field is described utilizing a generalized shear deformation theory (GSDT)-based FEM, meanwhile the linear water-wave theory (LWWT)-relied BEM is employed for the fluid hydrodynamic modeling. Both computational domains of the plate and fluid are coincidentally discretized into 4-node Hermite elements. Accordingly, the C1-continuous plate element model can be simply captured owing to the inherent feature of third-order Hermite polynomials. In addition, this model is also completely free from shear correction factors, although the shear deformation effects are still taken into account. While the fluid BEM can easily handle the free surface with a lower computational effort due to its boundary integral performance. Material properties through the plate thickness follow four specific CNT distributions. Outcomes gained by the present FEM-BEM are compared with those of previously released papers including analytical solutions and experimental data to validate its reliability. In addition, the influences of CNT volume fraction, different CNT configurations, water depth, and load speed on the hydroelastic behavior of FG-CNTRC plates are also examined.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.495-508
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• 2018

In this paper, the effect of matrix cracks on the buckling of a hybrid laminated plate is investigated. The plate is composed of carbon nanotube reinforced functionally graded (CNTR-FG) layers and conventional fiber reinforced composite (FRC) layers. Different distributions of single walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) through the thickness of layers are considered. The cracks are modeled as aligned slit cracks across the ply thickness and transverse to the laminate plane, and the distribution of cracks is assumed statistically homogeneous corresponding to an average crack density. The first-order shear deformation theory (FSDT) is employed to incorporate the effects of rotary inertia and transverse shear deformation, and the meshless kp-Ritz method is used to obtain the buckling solutions. Detailed parametric studies are conducted to investigate the effects of matrix crack density, CNTs distributions, CNT volume fraction, plate aspect ratio and plate length-to-thickness ratio, boundary conditions and number of layers on buckling behaviors of hybrid laminated plates containing CNTR-FG layers.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.51 no.1
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• pp.73-91
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• 2024

This paper has focused on presenting vibration analysis of trapezoidal sandwich plates with a damaged core and FG wavy CNT-reinforced face sheets. A damage model is introduced to provide an analytical description of an irreversible rheological process that causes the decay of the mechanical properties, in terms of engineering constants. An isotropic damage is considered for the core of the sandwich structure. The classical theory concerning the mechanical efficiency of a matrix embedding finite length fibers has been modified by introducing the tube-to-tube random contact, which explicitly accounts for the progressive reduction of the tubes' effective aspect ratio as the filler content increases. The First-order shear deformation theory of plate is utilized to establish governing partial differential equations and boundary conditions for the trapezoidal plate. The governing equations together with related boundary conditions are discretized using a mapping-generalized differential quadrature (GDQ) method in spatial domain. Then natural frequencies of the trapezoidal sandwich plates are obtained using GDQ method. Validity of the current study is evaluated by comparing its numerical results with those available in the literature. After demonstrating the convergence and accuracy of the method, different parametric studies for laminated trapezoidal structure including carbon nanotubes waviness (0≤w≤1), CNT aspect ratio (0≤AR≤4000), face sheet to core thickness ratio (0.1 ≤ ${\frac{h_f}{h_c}}$ ≤ 0.5), trapezoidal side angles (30° ≤ α, β ≤ 90°) and damaged parameter (0 ≤ D < 1) are carried out. It is explicated that the damaged core and weight fraction, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) waviness and CNT aspect ratio can significantly affect the vibrational behavior of the sandwich structure. Results show that by increasing the values of waviness index (w), normalized natural frequency of the structure decreases, and the straight CNT (w=0) gives the highest frequency. For an overall comprehension on vibration of laminated trapezoidal plates, some selected vibration mode shapes were graphically represented in this study.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.711-726
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• 2017

In the present work, by considering the agglomeration effect of single-walled carbon nanotubes, free vibration characteristics of functionally graded (FG) nanocomposite sandwich plates resting on Pasternak foundation are presented. The volume fractions of randomly oriented agglomerated single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) are assumed to be graded in the thickness direction. To determine the effect of CNT agglomeration on the elastic properties of CNT-reinforced composites, a two-parameter micromechanical model of agglomeration is employed. In this research work, an equivalent continuum model based on the Eshelby-Mori-Tanaka approach is employed to estimate the effective constitutive law of the elastic isotropic medium (matrix) with oriented straight CNTs. The 2-D generalized differential quadrature method (GDQM) as an efficient and accurate numerical tool is used to discretize the equations of motion and to implement the various boundary conditions. The proposed rectangular plates have two opposite edges simply supported, while all possible combinations of free, simply supported and clamped boundary conditions are applied to the other two edges. The benefit of using the considered power-law distribution is to illustrate and present useful results arising from symmetric and asymmetric profiles. The effects of two-parameter elastic foundation modulus, geometrical and material parameters together with the boundary conditions on the frequency parameters of the laminated FG nanocomposite plates are investigated. It is shown that the natural frequencies of structure are seriously affected by the influence of CNTs agglomeration. This study serves as a benchmark for assessing the validity of numerical methods or two-dimensional theories used to analysis of laminated plates.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.649-661
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• 2017

This paper is motivated by the lack of studies in the technical literature concerning to the influence of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) waviness and aspect ratio on the vibrational behavior of functionally graded nanocomposite annular sector plates resting on two-parameter elastic foundations. The carbon nanotube-reinforced (CNTR) plate has smooth variation of CNT fraction based on the power-law distribution in the thickness direction, and the material properties are also estimated by the extended rule of mixture. In this study, the classical theory concerning the mechanical efficiency of a matrix embedding finite length fibers has been modified by introducing the tube-to-tube random contact, which explicitly accounts for the progressive reduction of the tubes' effective aspect ratio as the filler content increases. Parametric studies are carried out to highlight the influence of CNTs volume fraction, waviness and aspect ratio, boundary conditions and elastic foundation on vibrational behavior of FG-CNT thick sectorial plates. The study is carried out based on three-dimensional theory of elasticity and in contrary to two-dimensional theories, such as classical, the first- and the higher-order shear deformation plate theories, this approach does not neglect transverse normal deformations. The annular sector plate is assumed to be simply supported in the radial edges while any arbitrary boundary conditions are applied to the other two circular edges including simply supported, clamped and free. For an overall comprehension on 3-D vibration of annular sector plates, some mode shape contour plots are reported in this research work.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.439-454
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• 2023

In this article, the surface stress effects on the buckling analysis of the annular sandwich plate is developed. The proposed plate is composed of two face layers made of carbon nanotubes (CNT) reinforced composite with assuming of fully bonded to functionally graded porous core. The generalized rule of the mixture is employed to predict the mechanical properties of the microcomposite sandwich plate. The derived potentials energy based on higher order shear deformation theory (HSDT) and modified couple stress theory (MCST) is solved by employing the Ritz method. An exact analytical solution is presented to calculate the critical buckling loads of the annular sandwich plate. The predicted results are validated by carrying out the comparison studies for the buckling analysis of annular plates with those obtained by other analytical and finite element methods. The effects of various parameters such as material length scale parameter, core thickness to total thickness ratio (hc/h), surface elastic constants based on surface stress effect, various boundary condition and porosity distributions, size of the internal pores (e0), Skempton coefficient and elastic foundation on the critical buckling load have been studied. The results can be served as benchmark data for future works and also in the design of materials science, injunction high-pressure micropipe connections, nanotechnology, and smart systems.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.1-12
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• 2020

This article deals with the buckling analysis in the plates containing carbon nanotubes (CNTs) subject to axial load. In order to control the plate smartly, a piezoelectric layer covered the plate. The plate is located in elastic medium which is modeled by spring elements. The Mori-Tanaka low is utilized for calculating the equivalent mechanical characteristics of the plate. The structure is modeled by a thick plate and the governing equations are deduced using Hamilton's principle under the assumption of higher-order shear deformation theory (HSDT). The Navier method is applied to obtain the bulking load. The effects of the applied voltage to the smart layer, agglomeration and volume percent of CNT nanoparticles, geometrical parameters and elastic medium of the structure are assessed on the buckling response. It has been demonstrated that by applying a negative voltage, the buckling load is increased significantly.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.57 no.1
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• pp.105-126
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• 2016

In the present study, modelling and vibration control of axially moving laminated Carbon nanotubes/fiber/polymer composite (CNTFPC) plate under initial tension are investigated. Orthotropic visco-Pasternak foundation is developed to consider the influences of orthotropy angle, damping coefficient, normal and shear modulus. The governing equations of the laminated CNTFPC plates are derived based on new form of first-order shear deformation plate theory (FSDT) which is simpler than the conventional one due to reducing the number of unknowns and governing equations, and significantly, it does not require a shear correction factor. Halpin-Tsai model is utilized to evaluate the material properties of two-phase composite consist of uniformly distributed and randomly oriented CNTs through the epoxy resin matrix. Afterwards, the structural properties of CNT reinforced polymer matrix which is assumed as a new matrix and then reinforced with E-Glass fiber are calculated by fiber micromechanics approach. Employing Hamilton's principle, the equations of motion are obtained and solved by Hybrid analytical numerical method. Results indicate that the critical speed of moving laminated CNTFPC plate can be improved by adding appropriate values of CNTs. These findings can be used in design and manufacturing of marine vessels and aircrafts.