Thermal buckling of advanced hybrid composite plates in the co-presence of CNTs and SMAs

Abstract

The main purpose of the present work is to investigate the simultaneous effects of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and shape memory alloy (SMA) wires on the thermal buckling behavior of graphite fiber/epoxy (GF/EP) composite plates. The thermal stability equations of hybrid SMA/CNT/GF/EP composite plates are derived based on the first-order shear deformation theory (FSDT), and solved using generalized differential quadrature (GDQ) method. The influences of CNTs and SMA wires on the buckling temperature of the hybrid composite plates are assessed for different geometric parameters, layups and boundary conditions. The numerical results indicate that CNTs have an almost constant effect on the thermal stability of composite plates while SMAs show different performances, depending on the geometric parameters, layups and boundary conditions. Interestingly, it is shown that in some circumstances, the use of either CNTs or SMAs alone does not effectively change the thermal buckling behavior of the composite plates, but their co-incorporation leads to a dramatic enhancement in the buckling temperature of the structure.