Hygrothermal mechanical behaviors of a porous FG-CRC annular plate with variable thickness considering aggregation of CNTs

Experiment in literature has shown the aggregation phenomenon in carbon nanotube (CNT) reinforced polymeric composites. In this paper, considering the aggregation effect of CNTs and porosity in both polymeric matrix and aggregated CNT clusters, a mechanical model to investigate the coupled conduction of temperature and moisture as well as the hygrothermal mechanical behaviors of a porous functionally graded CNT reinforced composite (FG-CRC) rotating annular plate with variable thickness is built. Numerical results of the temperature and moisture fields as well as the hygrothermal mechanical responses are achieved by combining the differential quadrature method (DQM), the Runge-Kutta method and the Newmark method. Several useful conclusions as follow are obtained through numerical examples and discussions. In the numerical examples, influences of the aggregation effect of CNTs, coupled effect of temperature and moisture, material property (graded index and porosity parameters), geometric parameters as well as the rotating conditions to the hygrothermal mechanical responses of the porous FG-CRC annular plate are studied in detail. The theoretical process and conclusions will be helpful to the design and manufacture of novel porous graded materials and structures applying in hygrothermal environment and conditions.