Buckling of thin composite plates reinforced with randomly oriented, straight single-walled carbon nanotubes using B3-Spline finite strip method

Abstract

This paper is devoted to the mechanical buckling analysis of thin composite plates under straight single-walled carbon nanotubes reinforcement with uniform distribution and random orientations. In order to develop the fundamental equations, the B3-Spline finite strip method along with the classical plate theory is employed and the total potential energy is minimized which leads to an eigenvalue problem. For deriving the effective modulus of thin composite plates reinforced with carbon nanotubes, the Mori-Tanaka method is used in which each straight carbon nanotube is modeled as a fiber with transversely isotropic elastic properties. The results of our numerical experiments including the critical buckling loads for rectangular thin composite plates reinforced by carbon nanotubes with various boundary conditions and different volume fractions of nanotubes are provided and the positive effect of using carbon nanotubes reinforcement in mechanical buckling of thin plates is illustrated.