Free vibration analysis of polymer composite plates reinforced with graphene platelets

Abstract

Composite materials are used because of its wide range of applications in structural design, especially due to its stringent stiffness and strength requirements in lightweight structures. They are used in aviation and space technology, motorsports and many industrial machines for decades. Reinforcements are provided to improve the tensile strength and young’s modulus of composite plates. Carbon nanotube (CNT) are commonly used as reinforcement in composite structure because of its preferable mechanical properties. However, due to high manufacturing costs, difficulty to attain uniform dispersion and highly anisotropic attributes of CNT-reinforced composite structures, its development is prevented. Hence graphene and its derivatives are used due to their supreme mechanical properties, improved reinforcing effects, considerable electrical and thermal conductivities and moderate cost. Structural vibration occurs when dynamic forces generated by compressors, pumps and engines causes the structure to vibrate. Natural frequency, also known as eigenfrequency, is thefrequencyat which asystemtends to vibrate in the absence of any driving or damping force oris thefrequencyat which it vibrates naturally once it has been set into motion. To detect abnormal vibration events and to evaluate the overall condition of composite plates, vibration analysis is a necessity. Designing the response of a structure and to take necessary steps to control the structural vibrations and its amplitude vibration analysis has become very important. Various parametric studies are carried out in terms of natural frequency and mode shapes to describe the effectiveness of polymer composite plates. The literature studies reveals that the boundary condition influences the natural frequency and mode shapes of composite plates. The present investigation is to determine the natural frequency of polymer composite plates reinforced with graphene platelets using ANSYS software.