Buckling and Free Vibration of Nonuniformly Heated Functionally Graded Carbon Nanotube Reinforced Polymer Composite Plate

Buckling and free vibration behavior of functionally graded carbon nanotube reinforced polymer composite plate subjected to nonuniform temperature fields have been investigated using finite element approach. The effective material constants of the plate are obtained using the extended rule of mixture along with efficiency parameters of the carbon nanotube (to include geometry-dependent material properties). Influence of boundary conditions, aspect ratio, functional grading of the carbon nanotube, nonuniform thermal loading on thermal buckling and free vibration behavior of the heated plate are analyzed. It is observed that temperature fields and functional grading are influenced on the critical buckling temperature of the plates. Further, nature of functional grading showed significant change in buckling mode shapes irrespective of the boundary conditions. The first few natural frequencies of the plate under thermal load decreases as the temperature increases and they are influenced significantly by the nature of temperature field. Variations in free vibration mode shapes of the square plates found with not significant change as temperature increases. However, free vibration modes of the rectangular plates are sensitive to the nature of temperature field whenever there is a free edge associated with the boundary condition. Influence of functional grading on the free vibration mode shapes is not significant in contrast with the free vibration natural frequencies. The magnitude of free vibration natural frequencies of functional grade-X type carbon nanotube reinforcement showed higher in comparison with other two types of reinforcements considered here.