Nonlocal electrothermomechanical instability of temperature-dependent FGM nanopanels with piezoelectric facesheets

Abstract

Within the framework of a novel shear deformation panel theory based on exponential shear stress distribution, the nonlocal continuum theory is utilized to establish an efficient size-dependent panel model to anticipate the nonlinear instability characteristics of nanoscaled panels subjected to combination of axial compressive load, lateral electric field and through-thickness heat conduction and corresponding to both the temperature-dependent (TD) and temperature-independent cases. The nanopanels contain a substrate made of functionally graded material (FGM) and surface-bonded piezoelectric nanolayers with temperature-dependent material properties. To eliminate the stretching-bending coupling terms, the physical neutral plane position related to the FGM substrate of nanopanels is taken into consideration. The nonlocal nonlinear governing equations are deduced to boundary layer-type ones and then solved via a perturbation-based solving process which results in explicit expressions for nonlocal temperature-dependent equilibrium curves. It is found that in the TD case, by heating the outer surface of nanopanel, the reductions in the values of buckling load and minimum postbuckling load are more considerable for nonlocal hybrid FGM nanopanel than those of local one.