• 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.50 no.6
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• pp.773-796
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• 2014

This paper deals with free vibration analysis of continuous grading fiber reinforced (CGFR) and bi-directional FG annular sector plates on two-parameter elastic foundations under various boundary conditions, based on the three-dimensional theory of elasticity. The plates with simply supported radial edges and arbitrary boundary conditions on their circular edges are considered. A semi-analytical approach composed of differential quadrature method (DQM) and series solution is adopted to solve the equations of motion. Some new results for the natural frequencies of the plate are prepared, which include the effects of elastic coefficients of foundation, boundary conditions, material and geometrical parameters. Results indicate that the non-dimensional natural frequency parameter of a functionally graded fiber volume fraction is larger than that of a discrete laminated and close to that of a 2-layer. It results that the CGFR plate attains natural frequency higher than those of traditional discretely laminated composite ones and this can be a benefit when higher stiffness of the plate is the goal and that is due to the reduction in spatial mismatch of material properties. Moreover, it is shown that a graded ceramic volume fraction in two directions has a higher capability to reduce the natural frequency than conventional one-dimensional functionally graded material. The multidirectional graded material can likely be designed according to the actual requirement and it is a potential alternative to the unidirectional functionally graded material. The new results can be used as benchmark solutions for future researches.