Isogeometric thermal postbuckling of FG-GPLRC laminated plates

Abstract

An analysis on thermal buckling and postbuckling of composite laminated plates reinforced with a low amount of graphene platelets is performed in the current investigation. It is assumed that graphaene platelets are randomly oriented and uniformly dispersed in each layer of the composite media. Elastic properties of the nanocomposite media are obtained by means of the modified Halpin-Tsai approach which takes into account the size effects of the graphene reinforcements. By means of the von Karman type of geometrical nonlinearity, third order shear deformation theory and nonuniform rational B-spline (NURBS) based isogeometric finite element method, the governing equations for the thermal postbuckling of nanocomposite plates in rectangular shape are established. These equations are solved by means of a direct displacement control strategy. Numerical examples are given to study the effects of boundary conditions, weight fraction of graphene platelets and distribution pattern of graphene platelets. It is shown that, with introduction of a small amount of graphene platelets into the matrix of the composite media, the critical buckling temperature of the plate may be enhanced and thermal postbuckling deflection may be alleviated.