Vibrational analysis of sandwich sectorial plates with functionally graded sheets reinforced by aggregated carbon nanotube

In the present work, by considering the agglomeration effect of single-walled carbon nanotubes, free vibration characteristics of functionally graded nanocomposite sandwich sectorial plates are presented. The volume fractions of randomly oriented agglomerated single-walled carbon nanotubes are assumed to be graded in the thickness direction. To determine the effect of carbon nanotube agglomeration on the elastic properties of carbon nanotube-reinforced composites, a two-parameter micromechanical model of agglomeration is employed. In this research work, an equivalent continuum model based on the Eshelby-Mori-Tanaka approach is considered to estimate the effective constitutive law of the elastic isotropic medium (matrix) with oriented straight carbon nanotubes. The two-dimensional generalized differential quadrature method as an efficient and accurate numerical tool is used to discretize the equations of motion and to implement the various boundary conditions. The proposed sectorial plates are simply supported at radial edges, while all possible combinations of free, simply supported, and clamped boundary conditions are applied to the other two circular edges. The benefit of using the considered power-law distribution is to illustrate and present useful results arising from symmetric and asymmetric profiles. The effects of agglomeration, geometrical, and material parameters together with the boundary conditions on the frequency parameters of the sandwich functionally graded nanocomposite plates are investigated. It is shown that the natural frequencies of structure are seriously affected by the influence of carbon nanotubes agglomeration. This study serves as a benchmark for assessing the validity of numerical methods or two-dimensional theories used to analyze the sandwich sectorial plates.