Nonlinear Electro-Thermo-Torsional Buckling Analysis of Stiffened Functionally Graded Graphene-Reinforced Composite Laminated Toroidal Shell Segments

Abstract

A new design of functionally graded graphene-reinforced composite laminated (FG-GRCL) toroidal shell segments in the thermal environment with a piezoelectric layer attached to the surface of the shells is presented in this paper. The piezoelectric FG-GRCL toroidal shell segments are reinforced by a FG-GRCL stringer and/or ring stiffener system. The nonlinear electro-thermo-torsional buckling and postbuckling of the shells are analyzed considering the geometrical nonlinearities described by von Kármán in the framework of the classical Donnell thin shell theory. Airy’s stress function and Galerkin’s process are applied, in which the deflection solution of the shell is approximately presented. The effects of thermal load, volume fraction and distribution type of graphene, piezoelectric layer, geometric parameters of the toroidal shell segments, and stiffeners on the torsional buckling load and postbuckling curves are analyzed and investigated in the numerical investigations.