Nonlinear vibration and postbuckling of functionally graded graphene reinforced porous nanocomposite beams

The nonlinear free vibration and postbuckling behaviors of multilayer functionally graded (FG) porous nanocomposite beams that are made of metal foams reinforced by graphene platelets (GPLs) are investigated in this paper. The internal pores and GPL nanofillers are uniformly dispersed within each layer but both porosity coefficient and GPL weight fraction change from layer to layer, resulting in position-dependent elastic moduli, mass density and Poisson's ratio along the beam thickness. The mechanical property of closed-cell cellular solids is employed to obtain the relationship between coefficients of porosity and mass density. The effective material properties of the nanocomposite are determined based on the Halpin-Tsai micromechanics model for Young's modulus and the rule of mixture for mass density and Poisson's ratio. Timoshenko beam theory and von Karman type nonlinearity are used to establish the differential governing equations that are solved by Ritz method and a direct iterative algorithm to obtain the nonlinear vibration frequencies and postbuckling equilibrium paths of the beams with different end supports. Special attention is given to the effects of varying porosity coefficients and GPL's weight fraction, dispersion pattern, geometry and size on the nonlinear behavior of the porous nanocomposite beam. It is found that the addition of a small amount of GPLs can remarkably reinforce the stiffness of the beam, and its nonlinear vibration and postbuckling performance is significantly influenced by the distribution patterns of both internal pores and GPL nanofillers. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.