Shear buckling of FG-CNT reinforced composite plates using Chebyshev-Ritz method

Shear buckling response of carbon nanotube reinforced composite (CNTRC) rectangular plates in thermal environment is investigated in this research. Distribution of CNTs across the plate thickness may be uniform or graded via a mid-plane symmetric pattern. Properties of the CNTRC plate are obtained using the modified rule of mixtures approach by introduction of efficiency parameters. First order plate theory is adopted to construct the basic equations of the plate. A two-dimensional Ritz formulation with Chebyshev basis polynomials is implemented to obtain the elastic and geometric stiffness matrices of the plate. The proposed solution method may be used for arbitrary in-plane and out-of-plane edge supports. After performing convergence and comparison studies to show the effectiveness and accuracy of the proposed method, parametric studies are conducted to examine the influences of boundary conditions, volume fraction of CNTs, graded pattern of CNTs, thermal environment and plate geometry. It is shown that, shear buckling capacity of the plate may be enhanced through functionally graded distribution of CNTs. Besides, enrichment of matrix with CNTs enhances the shear buckling loads of FG-CNTRC plates. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.