Thermal postbuckling behavior of FG-GRC laminated cylindrical panels with temperature-dependent properties

Abstract

The current study deals with thermal postbuckling behavior of graphene-reinforced composite (GRC) laminated cylindrical panels resting on elastic foundations. The GRC layers of the panel are arranged in a piece-wise functionally graded (FG) distribution along the thickness direction, and each layer of the panel contains different volume fractions of graphene reinforcement. The temperature dependent material properties of GRCs are estimated by the extended Halpin–Tsai micromechanical model with graphene efficiency parameters being calibrated against the GRC material properties obtained from the molecular dynamics simulations. The nonlinear governing equations for the thermally-loaded GRC laminated cylindrical panels are derived based on the higher order shear deformation theory and include the geometric nonlinearity effects in the sense of the von Kármán nonlinear kinematic assumptions. The panel-foundation interaction and thermal effects are also considered. The thermal postbuckling equilibrium paths for the perfect and geometrically imperfect GRC laminated cylindrical panels are obtained by applying a singular perturbation method in conjunction with a two-step perturbation approach. An iterative scheme is developed to obtain the numerical thermal postbuckling solutions of the panels. We observe that the piece-wise functionally graded distribution of graphene reinforcement can enhance the thermal postbuckling strength of the GRC laminated cylindrical panel under a uniform temperature field.