Buckling behavior of porous CNT-reinforced plates integrated between active piezoelectric layers

Abstract

This work presents the buckling resistance of a novel active multidisciplinary sandwich plate (AMSP) under in-plane mechanical load or temperature change. The proposed sandwich plate includes an advanced porous core reinforced with carbon nanotubes (CNTs) integrated between two active piezoelectric faces. Functional graded (FG) profiles are considered for the dispersions of CNTs and porosity along the thickness of core layer. In addition, the effect of CNT agglomeration in core layer on the buckling resistance of the proposed AMSP has been studied by employing Eshelby-Mori-Tanaka (EMT)'s approach. A third order shear deformation theory (TSDT) of plates is adopted to obtain governing Eigen value equations for the thermal and mechanical buckling analyses of AMSP. The critical buckling resistance of each analysis has been extracted from the governing equations through a developed mesh-free solution based on moving least squares (MLSs) shape functions. The impacts of porosity, CNTs and geometrical dimensions on the buckling resistance of AMSPs have been investigated. The results show that embedding porosity in core results in a slight reduction in mechanical responses and a significant improvement in thermal buckling resistance. Moreover, reinforcing core layer with CNTs leads to remarkable drop and increase in thermal and mechanical buckling resistances, respectively. However, the formation of CNT agglomerations significantly reduces such CNTs impacts.