Exact solutions for static and dynamic analyses of carbon nanotube-reinforced composite plates with Pasternak elastic foundation

This paper investigates static and dynamic behavior of carbon nanotube-reinforced composite plates resting on the Pasternak elastic foundation including shear layer and Winkler springs. The plates are reinforced by single-walled carbon nanotubes with four types of distributions of uni-axially aligned reinforcement material. Exact solutions obtained from closed-form formulation based on generalized shear deformation plat theory which can be adapted to various plate theories for bending, buckling and vibration analyses of such plates are presented. An accuracy of the present solutions is validated numerically by comparisons with some available results in the literature. Various significant parameters of carbon nanotube volume fraction, spring constant factors, plate thickness and aspect ratios, etc. are taken into investigation. According to the numerical results, it is revealed that the deflection of the plates is found to decrease as the increase of spring constant factors; while, the buckling load and natural frequency increase as the increment of the factors for every type of plate. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.