Effect of crack on shear buckling of CNTRC plates

Abstract

This paper presents the buckling analysis of cracked CNTRC plates under shear loading using XFEM, focusing on the existence of the off-center cracks as the novelty of the research. For this purpose, the equivalent mechanical properties of the nanocomposites are calculated using the Eshelby-Mori-Tanaka homogenization scheme. The CNTs are assumed to be randomly oriented, experiencing the null, partial and complete agglomeration. The numerical models of the cracked CNTRC plates with center and off-center cracks are created using a calculation code prepared in MATLAB. The effect of volume fraction (VCNT = 0.0, 0.05, 0.1, 0.15, 0.20) and agglomeration of CNTs, crack length (0.0 ≤ a* ≤ 0.8), location of the crack (0.0 ≤ ey* ≤ 0.9 and 0.0 ≤ ex* ≤ 0.6), boundary conditions (SSSS, CCCC, CFCF, CSCS) and aspect ratio of cracked CNTRC plate (L* = 0.5, 1.0, 2.0) on the critical buckling coefficient and mode shape is investigated. The results show that the critical buckling mode shape is affected by the interaction effects of various cracking parameters. In addition, the CNT parameters, including the volume fraction and agglomeration, significantly affect the shear buckling capacity of the cracked CNTRC plates.