Nonlinear thermal torsional post-buckling of carbon nanotube-reinforced composite cylindrical shell with piezoelectric actuator layers surrounded by elastic medium

The paper focuses on thermal torsional post buckling of functionally graded carbon nanotube reinforced composite cylindrical shells with sur-bonding piezoelectric layers and embedded in an elastic medium. The distribution of reinforcements through the thickness of the shells is considered to be uniform and functionally graded. The basic equations using geometrically nonlinearity in von Karman-Donnell sense within the classical thin shell theory are established. The torsional post-buckling behavior of the piezoelectric functionally graded carbon nanotubes reinforced composite (FG-CNTRC) shells is analyzed with using the Airy's stress function and the Galerkin's method, in which a three-term approximate solution of the deflection of the shell is assumed. Effects of thermal environment, CNT volume fraction, piezoelectric layers (the thickness and the constant voltage), distribution type of the reinforcement, dimensional parameters and Winkler and Pasternak foundation are investigated in this paper. Numerical and graphical results show that the carbon nanotube volume fraction and the piezoelectric layers as well as the elastic foundation and the thermal loads have significantly influenced on the torsional postbuckling behavior of nanocomposite shells.