Nonlinear Thermo-Electro-Mechanical Buckling of Higher-Order Shear Deformable Stiffened FG-GRC Laminated Plates

Abstract

In this paper, a new improved smeared stiffener technique for the higher-order shear deformable anisotropic stiffeners is presented. The thermo-electro-mechanical nonlinear buckling response of functionally graded graphene reinforcement composite (FG-GRC) laminated plates subjected to the combination of external and axial compression loads in the thermal environment with the inverse piezoelectric effect of a piezoelectric layer is analytically considered. It is proposed that the FG-GRC laminated plates are stiffened by the FG-GRC laminated stiffener system in the longitudinal or transverse directions at the bottom surface and the piezoelectric layer are attached at the top surface. The distribution law of graphene is suitably designed to ensure the piecewise continuity of material. The nonlinear higher-order shear deformation plate theory (HSDPT) is employed to formulate the stability equation system. The stress function is introduced and Galerkin’s method is employed to achieve the algebraically nonlinear stability equation system. Then, the simple calculation procedure can be applied to solve the acquired equation systems, and the expressions of critical buckling loads and postbuckling load-deflection curves are presented in explicit forms. The numerical investigations validate the significant influences of temperature, material, laminated stiffeners, and geometrical features on the nonlinear thermo-electro-mechanical buckling behavior of FG-GRC laminated plates.