• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.88 no.6
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• pp.551-567
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• 2023

In this work, the free vibration analysis of functionally graded material (FGM) sandwich plates with porosity is conducted using the p-version of the finite element method (FEM), which is based on the first-order shear deformation theory (FSDT). The sandwich plate consists of two face-sheet layers of FGM and a homogeneous core layer. The obtained results are validated using convergence and comparison studies with previously published results. Five porosities distribution models of FGM sandwich plates are assumed and analyzed. The effect of the thickness ratio, boundary conditions, volume fraction exponents, and porosity coefficients of the top and bottom layers of FGM sandwich plates on the natural frequency are addressed.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.38 no.5
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• pp.549-571
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• 2011

This paper presents analytical solutions for skewed thick plates under transverse loading that have previously been unreported in the literature. The thick plate solution is obtained in a framework of an oblique coordinate system. The governing equation is first derived in the oblique coordinate system, and the solution is obtained using deflection and rotation as partial derivatives of a potential function developed in this research. The solution technique is applied to three illustrative application examples, and the results are compared with numerical solutions in the literature and those derived from the commercial finite element analysis package ANSYS 11. These results are in excellent agreement. The present solution may also be used to model skewed structures such as skewed bridges, to facilitate efficient routine design or evaluation analyses, and to form special elements for finite element analysis. At the same time, the analytical solution developed in this research could be used to develop methods to address post-buckling and dynamic problems.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.31-46
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• 2019

In the present study, the various dynamic properties of MWCNT embedded fiber reinforced polymer uniform and tapered composite (MWCNT-FRP) plates are investigated. Various configurations of a tapered composite plate with ply-drop off and uniform composite plate have been considered for the development of the finite element formulation and experimental investigations. First order shear deformation theory (FSDT) has been used to derive the kinetic and potential energy equations of the hybrid composite plates by including the effect of rotary inertia, shear deformation and non-uniformity in thickness of the plate. The governing equations of motion of FRP composite plates without and with MWCNT reinforcement are derived by considering a nine- node rectangular element with five degrees of freedom (DOF) at each node. The effectiveness of the developed finite element formulation has been demonstrated by comparing the natural frequencies and damping ratio of FRP composite plates without and with MWCNT reinforcement obtained experimentally. Various parametric studies are also performed to study the effect of CNT volume fraction and CNT aspect ratio of the composite plate on the natural frequencies of different configurations of CNT reinforced hybrid composite plates. Further the forced vibration analysis is performed to compare the dynamic response of the various configurations of MWCNT-GFRP composite plate with GFRP composite plate under harmonic excitations. It was observed that the fundamental natural frequency and damping ratio of the GFRP composite plate increase approximately 8% and 37% respectively with 0.5wt% reinforcement of MWCNT under CFCF boundary condition. The natural frequencies of MWCNT-GFRP hybrid composite plates tend to decrease with the increase of MWCNT volume fraction beyond 2% due to agglomeration of CNT's. It is also observed that the aspect ratio of the CNT has negligible effect on the improvement of dynamics properties due to randomly orientation of CNT's.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.227-239
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• 2020

The aim of this study is to obtain the nonlinear and post-buckling responses of relatively thick functionally graded plates with oblique elliptical cutouts using a new semi-analytical approach. To model the oblique elliptical hole in a FGM plate, six plate-elements are used and the connection between these elements is provided by the well-known Penalty method. Therefore, the semi-analytical technique used in this paper is known as the plate assembly technique. In order to take into account for functionality of the material in a perforated plate, the volume fraction of the material constituents follows a simple power law distribution. Since the FGM perforated plates are relatively thick in this research, the structural model is assumed to be the first order shear deformation theory and Von-Karman's assumptions are used to incorporate geometric nonlinearity. The equilibrium equations for FGM plates containing elliptical holes are obtained by the principle of minimum of total potential energy. The obtained nonlinear equilibrium equations are solved numerically using the quadratic extrapolation technique. Various sets of boundary conditions for FGM plates and different cutout sizes and orientations are assumed here and their effects on nonlinear response of plates under compressive loads are examined.

• 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.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.85 no.2
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• pp.147-161
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• 2023

Based on the ideas of variational differential quadrature (VDQ) and finite element method (FEM), a numerical approach named as VDQFEM is applied herein to study the large deformations of plate-type structures under static loading with arbitrary shape hole made of functionally graded graphene platelet-reinforced composite (FG-GPLRC) in the context of higher-order shear deformation theory (HSDT). The material properties of composite are approximated based upon the modified Halpin-Tsai model and rule of mixture. Furthermore, various FG distribution patterns are considered along the thickness direction of plate for GPLs. Using novel vector/matrix relations, the governing equations are derived through a variational approach. The matricized formulation can be efficiently employed in the coding process of numerical methods. In VDQFEM, the space domain of structure is first transformed into a number of finite elements. Then, the VDQ discretization technique is implemented within each element. As the last step, the assemblage procedure is performed to derive the set of governing equations which is solved via the pseudo arc-length continuation algorithm. Also, since HSDT is used herein, the mixed formulation approach is proposed to accommodate the continuity of first-order derivatives on the common boundaries of elements. Rectangular and circular plates under various boundary conditions with circular/rectangular/elliptical cutout are selected to generate the numerical results. In the numerical examples, the effects of geometrical properties and reinforcement with GPL on the nonlinear maximum deflection-transverse load amplitude curve are studied.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.503-516
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• 2019

This work presents a dynamic investigation of functionally graded (FG) plates resting on elastic foundation using a simple quasi-3D higher shear deformation theory (quasi-3D HSDT) in which the stretching effect is considered. The culmination of this theory is that in addition to taking into account the effect of thickness extension (${\varepsilon}_z{\neq}0$), the kinematic is defined with only 4 unknowns, which is even lower than the first order shear deformation theory (FSDT). The elastic foundation is included in the formulation using the Pasternak mathematical model. The governing equations are deduced through the Hamilton's principle. These equations are then solved via closed-type solutions of the Navier type. The fundamental frequencies are predicted by solving the eigenvalue problem. The degree of accuracy of present solutions can be shown by comparing it to the 3D solution and other closed-form solutions available in the literature.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.41-58
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• 2004

The postbuckling behaviour of thin shells has fascinated researchers because the theoretical prediction and their experimental verification are often different. In reality, shell panels possess small imperfections and these can cause large reduction in static buckling strength. This is more relevant in thin laminated composite shells. To study the postbuckling behaviour of thin, imperfect laminated composite shells using finite elements, explicit incremental or secant matrices have been presented in this paper. These incremental matrices which are derived using Marguerre's shallow shell theory can be used in combination with any thin plate/shell finite element (Classical Laminated Plate Theory - CLPT) and can be easily extended to the First Order Shear deformation Theory (FOST). The advantage of the present formulation is that it involves no numerical approximation in forming total potential energy of the shell during large deformations as opposed to earlier approximate formulations published in the literature. The initial imperfection in shells could be modeled by simply adjusting the ordinate of the shell forms. The present formulation is very easy to implement in any existing finite element codes. The secant matrices presented in this paper are shown to be very accurate in tracing the postbuckling behaviour of thin isotropic and laminated composite shells with general initial imperfections.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.90 no.4
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• pp.391-401
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• 2024

The present study focuses on the effect of extension-bending coupling on the elastic stability (buckling) of laminated composite plates. These plates will be loaded under uni-axial or bi-axial in-plane mechanical loads, especially in the orthotropic or anti-symmetric cross-angle cases. The main objective is to find a limit where we can approximate the elastic stability behavior of angularly crossed anti-symmetric plates by the simple behavior of specially orthotropic plates. The contribution of my present study is to predict the explicit effect of extension-flexion coupling on the elastic stability of this type of panel. Critically, a parametric study is carried out, involving the search for the critical buckling load as a function of deformation mode, aspect ratio, plate anisotropy ratio and finally the study of the effect of lamination angle and number of layers on the contribution of extension-flexure coupling in terms of plate buckling stability. We use first-order shear deformation theory (FSDT) with a correction factor of 5/6. Simply supported conditions along the four boundaries are adopted where we can develop closed-form analytical solutions obtained by a Navier development.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.52 no.1
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• pp.137-147
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• 2014

The present paper deals with the first ply failure analysis of the laminated composite plates under various static and dynamic loading conditions. Static analysis has been carried out under patch load and triangular load. The dynamic failure analysis has been carried out under triangular pulse load. The formulation has been carried out using the finite element method and a computer code has been developed. The first order shear deformation theory has been applied in the present formulation. The displacement time history analysis of laminated composite plate has been carried out and the results are compared with those published in literature to validate the formulation. The first ply failure load for laminated composite plates with various lamination schemes under static and dynamic loading conditions has been calculated using various failure criteria. The failure index-time history analysis has also been carried out and presented in this paper.