Isogeometric analysis for buckling and postbuckling of graphene platelet reinforced composite plates in thermal environments

Abstract

This work aims at examining the buckling and postbuckling behaviour of laminated composite plate in which GPLs (graphene platelets) are functionally dispersed under various kinds of thermal loadings. For this purpose, IGA (isogeometric analysis) method of which merits encompass the precise geometric representation, smoothness of higher-order, cost-efficiency and high accuracy is taken advantage of. Shear deformable plate theory into which a hyperbolic shear shape function and the von Kármán type nonlinear kinematics are incorporated is used to derive the nonlinear equations of equilibrium for the GPL reinforced composite plate subjected to thermal gradients. On the basis of the total Lagrangian formulation, the governing equation for the thermal buckling is established and the nonlinear thermal postbuckling path is traced together with the modified Newton-Raphson iteration. Three schemes of the symmetric GPL distributions are considered. The IGA approach proposed here, by checking the performance capacity via the multiple numerical tests, is substantiated to successfully follow the nonlinear buckling and postbuckling path of the nanocomposite plate in thermal environments. The further parametric investigations highlight the impacts of the thermal load type, GPL weight fraction, GPL arrangement pattern, plate geometric parameter, plate constraint condition and surface temperature contour on the thermal buckling and postbuckling responses of the GPL strengthened composite plate.