• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.149-159
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• 2018

Thermo-mechanical buckling of sandwich beams with a stiff core and face sheets made of functionally graded carbon nanotube-reinforced composite (FG-CNTRC) within the framework of Timoshenko beam theory is presented. The material properties of FG-CNTRC are supposed to vary continuously in the thickness direction and are estimated through the rule of mixture. Also the properties of these materials should be considered temperature dependent. The governing equations and boundary conditions are derived by using Hamilton's principle and solved using an efficient technique called the Differential Transform Method (DTM) to achieve the critical buckling of the sandwich beam in uniform thermal environment. A detailed parametric study is guided to investigate the effects of carbon nanotube volume fraction, slenderness ratio, core-to-face sheet thickness ratio, and clamped-clamped, simply-simply and clamped-simply end supports on the critical buckling behavior of sandwich beams with FG-CNTRC face sheets. Numerical results for comparison of sandwich beams with uniformly distributed carbon nanotube-reinforced composite (UD-CNTRC) face sheets with those with FG-CNTRC face sheets are also presented.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.50 no.2
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• pp.135-148
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• 2024

This paper analytically investigates the free vibration analysis of functionally graded-carbon nanotube reinforced composite (FG-CNTRC) plates by dynamic stiffness method (DSM). The properties of CNTRC are determined with the extended rule of mixture. The governing differential equations of motion based on the first-order shear deformation theory of CNTRC plate are derived using Hamilton's principle. The FG-CNTRC plates are studied for a uniform and two different distributions of carbon nanotubes (CNTs). The accuracy and performance of the DSM are compared with the results obtained from closed closed-form and semi-analytical solution methods in previous studies. In this study, the effects of boundary condition, distribution type of CNTs, plate aspect ratio, plate length to thickness ratio, and different values of CNTs volume fraction on the natural frequencies of the FG-CNTRC plates are investigated. Finally, various natural frequencies of the plates in different conditions are provided as a benchmark for comparing the accuracy and precision of the other analytical and numerical methods.

• Coupled systems mechanics
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.207-227
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• 2017

In this paper Timoshenko beam theory is employed to investigate the vibration characteristics of functionally graded carbon nanotube-reinforced composite (FG-CNTRC) Beams with a stiff core in thermal environment. The material characteristic of carbon nanotubes (CNT) are supposed to change in the thickness direction in a functionally graded form. They can also be calculated through a micromechanical model where the CNT efficiency parameter is determined by matching the elastic modulus of CNTRCs calculated from the rule of mixture with those gained from the molecular dynamics simulations. The differential transform method (DTM) which is established upon the Taylor series expansion is one of the effective mathematical techniques employed to the differential governing equations of sandwich beams. Effects of carbon nanotube volume fraction, slenderness ratio, core-to-face sheet thickness ratio, different thermal environment and various boundary conditions on the free vibration characteristics of FG-CNTRC sandwich beams are studied. It is observed that vibration response of FG-CNTRC sandwich beams is prominently influenced by these parameters.

• Advances in aircraft and spacecraft science
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.107-128
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• 2018

Thermo-mechanical vibration of sandwich beams with a stiff core and face sheets made of functionally graded carbon nanotube-reinforced composite (FG-CNTRC) is investigated within the framework of Timoshenko beam theory. The material properties of FG-CNTRC are supposed to vary continuously in the thickness direction and are estimated through the rule of mixture and are considered to be temperature dependent. The governing equations and boundary conditions are derived by using Hamilton's principle and are solved using an efficient semi-analytical technique of the differential transform method (DTM). Comparison between the results of the present work and those available in literature shows the accuracy of this method. A parametric study is conducted to study the effects of carbon nanotube volume fraction, slenderness ratio, core-to-face sheet thickness ratio, and various boundary conditions on free vibration behavior of sandwich beams with FG-CNTRC face sheets. It is explicitly shown that the vibration characteristics of the curved nanosize beams are significantly influenced by the surface density effects.

• Advances in nano research
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.443-450
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• 2023

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have received increased interest in reinforcing research for polymer matrix composites due to their exceptional mechanical characteristics. Its high surface area/volume ratio and aspect ratio enable polymer-based composites to make the most of its features. This study focuses on the experimental tensile testing and fabrication of carbon nanotube reinforced composite (CNTRC) beams, exploring various micromechanical models. By examining the performance of these models alongside experimental results, the research aims to better understand and optimize the mechanical properties of CNTRC materials. Tensile properties of neat epoxy and 0.3%; 0.4% and 0.5% by CNT reinforced laminated single layer (0°/90°) carbon fiber composite beams were investigated. The composite plates were produced in accordance with ASTM D7264 standard. The tensile test was performed in order to see the mechanical properties of the composite beams. The results showed that the optimum amount of CNT was 0.3% based on the tensile capacity. The capacity was significantly reduced when 0.4% CNT was utilized. Moreover, the experimental results are compared with Finite Element Models using ABAQUS. Hashin Failure Criteria was utilized to predict the tensile capacity. Good conformance was observed between experimental and numerical models. More importantly is that Young' Moduli of the specimens is compared with the prediction Halpin-Tsai and Mixture-Rule. Although Halpin-Tsai can accurately predict the Young's Moduli of the specimens, the accuracy of Mixture-Rule was significantly low.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.1259-1277
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• 2015

In this work, a trigonometric refined beam theory for the bending, buckling and free vibration analysis of carbon nanotube-reinforced composite (CNTRC) beams resting on elastic foundation is developed. The significant feature of this model is that, in addition to including the shear deformation effect, it deals with only 3 unknowns as the Timoshenko beam (TBM) without including a shear correction factor. The single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) are aligned and distributed in polymeric matrix with different patterns of reinforcement. The material properties of the CNTRC beams are assessed by employing the rule of mixture. To examine accuracy of the present theory, several comparison studies are investigated. Furthermore, the effects of different parameters of the beam on the bending, buckling and free vibration responses of CNTRC beam are discussed.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.137-150
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• 2020

In this paper, the bending behavior of single-walled carbon nanotube-reinforced composite (CNTRC) laminated plates is studied using various shear deformation plate theories. Several types of reinforcement material distributions, a uniform distribution (UD) and three functionally graded distributions (FG), are inspected. A generalized higher-order deformation plate theory is utilized to derive the field equations of the CNTRC laminated plates where an analytical technique based on Navier's series is utilized to solve the static problem for simply-supported boundary conditions. A detailed numerical analysis is carried out to examine the influence of carbon nanotube volume fraction, laminated composite structure, side-to-thickness, and aspect ratios on stresses and deflection of the CNTRC laminated plates.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.45 no.5
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• pp.641-652
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• 2022

Fluid-conveying tubes are widely used to transport oil and natural gas in industries. As an advanced composite material, functionally graded carbon nanotube-reinforced composites (FG-CNTRC) have great potential to empower the industry. However, nonlinear free vibration of the FG-CNTRC fluid-conveying pipe has not been attempted in thermal environment. In this paper, the nonlinear free vibration characteristic of functionally graded nanocomposite fluid-conveying pipe reinforced by single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) in thermal environment is investigated. The SWCNTs gradient distributed in the thickness direction of the pipe forms different reinforcement patterns. The material properties of the FG-CNTRC are estimated by rule of mixture. A higher-order shear deformation theory and Hamilton's variational principle are employed to derive the motion equations incorporating the thermal and fluid effects. A two-step perturbation method is implemented to obtain the closed-form asymptotic solutions for these nonlinear partial differential equations. The nonlinear frequencies under several reinforcement patterns are presented and discussed. We conduct a series of studies aimed at revealing the effects of the flow velocity, the environment temperature, the inner-outer diameter ratio, and the carbon nanotube volume fraction on the nature frequency.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.88 no.4
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• pp.335-354
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• 2023

In this study, analysis of wave propagation characteristics for functionally graded carbon nanotube-reinforced composite (FG-CNTRC) nanoplates is performed using first-order shear deformation theory (FSDT) and nonlocal strain gradient theory. Uniform distribution (UD) and three types of functionally graded distributions of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are assumed. The effective mechanical properties of the FG-CNTRC nanoplate are assumed to vary continuously in the thickness direction and are approximated based on the rule of mixture. Also, the governing equations of motion are derived via the extended Hamilton's principle. In numerical examples, the effects of nonlocal parameter, wavenumber, angle of wave propagation, volume fractions, and carbon nanotube distributions on the wave propagation characteristics of the FG-CNTRC nanoplate are studied. As represented in the results, it is clear that the internal length-scale parameter has a remarkable effect on the wave propagation characteristics resulting in significant changes in phase velocity and natural frequency. Furthermore, it is observed that the strain gradient theory yields a higher phase velocity and frequency compared to those obtained by the nonlocal strain gradient theory and classic theory.

• Advances in nano research
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.251-263
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• 2024

This article investigates the free vibration behavior of carbon nanotube reinforced composite (CNTRC) beams embedded using variational analytical methods and artificial neural networks (ANN). The material properties of layered functionally graded CNTRC (FG-CNTRC) beams are estimated using nonlocal parameters modified power-law with different types of CNT distributions through the thickness direction of the beam. Adopting Eringen's nonlocal elasticity theory to capture the small size effects, the nonlocal governing equations are derived and solved using the analytical method. And also, the problem was analyzed using the ANN method. The architecture of the proposed ANN model is 3-9-1. In the experiments, we used 112 different data to predict the natural frequency using ANN. Based on the nonlocal differential constitutive relations of Eringen, the equations of motion as well as the boundary conditions of the beam are derived using Hamilton's principle. The classical beam theory is used to formulate a governing equation for predicting the free vibration of laminated CNTRC beams. According to the experimental results, the prediction ability of the ANN model is very good and the natural frequency can be predicted in ANN without attempting any experiments.