Free vibration analysis of rotating sandwich beams with FG-CNTRC face sheets in thermal environments with general boundary conditions

Abstract

Abstract This paper provides a numerical solution for the free vibration of a rotating sandwich beam using FG-CNTRC as the face sheet in a thermal environment. The artificial spring technique is used to imitate classical and nonclassical boundary conditions (BCs) of the rotating sandwich beam. All materials of core and face sheets are considered temperature dependent. Employing the first-order shear deformation theory (FSDT) and Hamilton’s principle, the vibration equation of the beam is derived. Using the differential quadrature method (DQM), the discrete forms of vibration equations and numerical results of the current problem are presented. Then, the applicability of the proposed solution is verified by comparing the corresponding results available in the existing literature. The effects of the distribution of CNTs, thermal effect, rotation, core to face thickness, and geometric parameters on the free vibration of the beam are discussed. More significantly, the different types of FG-CNTRC face sheets produce unusual stiffness enhancement effects on the beam and lead to different stability domains of the beam. The advantage of the proposed method is that the solution for free vibration of the beam with various BCs can be calculated only by changing the stiffness of the artificial spring without re-substituting the BCs in the solution matrix.