• Composites Research
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.17-22
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• 2011

In this paper, as a basic research to apply the composite sandwich to underwater vehicle, the manufacturing, analysis and test methods, and weight saving effect of a composite sandwich cylinder under external pressure were studied. A two-step manufacturing method to prevent the wrinkling of the sandwich cylinder face was proposed and the three cylinders were made and tested. Finite element results based on the shell and solid model using MSC.Nastran were compared with test results. The comparison showed that the linear finite element analysis using the shell and solid elements can predict the buckling pressure of the sandwich cylinder with approximately 3% difference. The parametric study of the filament wound cylinders revealed that the composite sandwich can reduce the weight of the cylinder more than 30% compared with the filament wound cylinder supporting the same pressure.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.157-169
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• 2012

Shell structures are very interesting from the design point of view and these are well recognized in the scientific literature. In this paper the analysis of the buckling loads and stability paths of a sandwich conical shell with unsymmetrical faces under combined load based on the assumptions of moderately large deflections (geometrically nonlinear theory) is considered and elastic-plastic properties of the material of the faces are taken into considerations. External load is assumed to be two-parametrical one and it is assumed that the shell deforms into the plastic range before buckling. Constitutive relations in the analysis are those of the Nadai-Hencky deformation theory of plasticity and Prandtl-Reuss plastic flow theory with the H-M-H (Huber-Mises-Hencky) yield condition. The governing stability equations are obtained by strain energy approach and Ritz method is used to solve the equations with the help of analytical-numerical methods using computer.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.50 no.1
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• pp.63-75
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• 2024

In this paper, the modified couple stress theory (MCST) and first order shear deformation theory (FSDT) are employed to investigate the free vibration and bending analyses of a three-layered micro-shell sandwiched by piezoelectric layers subjected to an applied voltage and reinforced graphene nanoplatelets (GPLs) under external and internal pressure. The micro-shell is resting on an elastic foundation modeled as Pasternak model. The mixture's rule and Halpin-Tsai model are utilized to compute the effective mechanical properties. By applying Hamilton's principle, the motion equations and associated boundary conditions are derived. Static/ dynamic results are obtained using Navier's method. The results are validated with the previously published works. The numerical results are presented to study and discuss the influences of various parameters on the natural frequencies and deflection of the micro-shell, such as applied voltage, thickness of the piezoelectric layer to radius, length to radius ratio, volume fraction and various distribution pattern of the GPLs, thickness-to-length scale parameter, and foundation coefficients for the both external and internal pressure. The main novelty of this work is simultaneous effect of graphene nanoplatelets as reinforcement and piezoelectric layers on the bending and vibration characteristics of the sandwich micro shell.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.43 no.6
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• pp.739-759
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• 2012

The tailoring optimization technique recently developed by the author for improving structural response and energy absorption of composites is extended to sandwich shells using a previously developed zig-zag shell model with hierarchic representation of displacements. The in-plane variation of the stiffness properties of plies and the through-the thickness variation of the core properties are determined solving the Euler-Lagrange equations of an extremal problem in which the strain energy due to out-of-plane strains and stresses is minimised, while that due to their in-plane counterparts is maximised. In this way, the energy stored by unwanted out-of-plane modes involving weak properties is transferred to acceptable in-plane modes. As shown by the numerical applications, the critical interlaminar stress concentrations at the interfaces with the core are consistently reduced without any bending stiffness loss and the strength to debonding of faces from the core is improved. The structural model was recently developed by the author to accurately describe strain energy and interlaminar stresses from the constitutive equations. It a priori fulfills the displacement and stress contact conditions at the interfaces, considers a second order expansion of Lame's coefficients and a hierarchic representation that adapts to the variation of solutions. Its functional d.o.f. are the traditional mid-plane displacements and the shear rotations, so refinement implies no increase of the number of functional d.o.f. Sandwich shells are represented as multilayered shells made of layers with different thickness and material properties, the core being treated as a thick intermediate layer.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.595-605
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• 2017

The present article reported the thermal buckling strength of the sandwich shell panel structure and subsequent improvement of the same by embedding shape memory alloy (SMA) fibre via a general higher-order mathematical model in conjunction with finite element method. The geometrical distortion of the panel structure due to the temperature is included using Green-Lagrange strain-displacement relations. In addition, the material nonlinearity of SMA fibre due to the elevated thermal environment also incorporated in the current analysis through the marching technique. The final form of the equilibrium equation is obtained by minimising the total potential energy functional and solved computationally with the help of an original MATLAB code. The convergence and the accuracy of the developed model are demonstrated by solving similar kind of published numerical examples including the necessary input parameter. After the necessary establishment of the newly developed numerical solution, the model is extended further to examine the effect of the different structural parameters (side-to-thickness ratios, curvature ratios, core-to-face thickness ratios, volume fractions of SMA fibre and end conditions) on the buckling strength of the SMA embedded sandwich composite shell panel including the different geometrical configurations.

• Aerospace Engineering and Technology
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.9-16
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• 2010

In this study, structural analyses were carried out on the composite sandwich panel which was tested under compression loading. In the structural analyses, three types of finite element modelling were considered and linear buckling analysis and nonlinear analysis were performed for each FE-model. Through the analyses, it was found that shell elements for face parts and solid elements for core part were appropriate for the better prediction of the buckling load of the panel. If the material failure of the face is critical than overall buckling of the sandwich panel, the use of one shell element through the thickness direction was suitable in the FE-model for the better predictions of failure location and failure load.

• Advances in aircraft and spacecraft science
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.335-351
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• 2020

Thermal buckling of functionally graded sandwich cylindrical shells is presented in this study. Material properties and thermal expansion coefficient of FGM layers are assumed to vary continuously through the thickness according to a sigmoid function and simple power-law distribution in terms of the volume fractions of the constituents. Equilibrium and stability equations of FGM sandwich cylindrical shells with simply supported boundary conditions are derived according to the Donnell theory. The influences of cylindrical shell geometry and the gradient index on the critical buckling temperature of several kinds of FGM sandwich cylindrical shells are investigated. The thermal loads are assumed to be uniform, linear and nonlinear distribution across the thickness direction. An exact simple form of nonlinear temperature rise through its thickness taking into account the thermal conductivity and the inhomogeneity parameter is presented.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.363-376
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• 2001

Sandwich plates are widely used in lightweight design due to their high strength and stiffness to weight ratio. Due to the heterogeneous structure of sandwich plates, they can exhibit local instabilities (wrinkling), which lead to a sudden loss of stiffness in the structure. This paper presents an analytical solution to the wrinkling problem of sandwich plates. The solution is based on the Rayleigh-Ritz method, by assuming an appropriate deformation field. In contrast to the other approaches up to now, this model takes arbitrary and different orthotropic face layers, finite core thickness and orthotropic core material into account. This approach is the first to cover the wrinkling of unsymmetric sandwiches and sandwiches composed of orthotropic FRP face layers, which are most common in advanced lightweight design. Despite the generality of the solution, the computational effort is kept within bounds. The results have been verified using other analytical solutions and unit cell 3D FE calculations.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.713-733
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• 2015

In this paper, viscous fluid induced nonlinear free vibration and instability analysis of a functionally graded carbon nanotube-reinforced composite (CNTRC) cylindrical shell integrated with two uniformly distributed piezoelectric layers on the top and bottom surfaces of the cylindrical shell are presented. Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) are selected as reinforcement and effective material properties of FG-CNTRC cylindrical shell are assumed to be graded through the thickness direction and are estimated through the rule of mixture. The elastic foundation is modeled by temperature-dependent orthotropic Pasternak medium. Considering coupling of mechanical and electrical fields, Mindlin shell theory and Hamilton's principle, the motion equations are derived. Nonlinear frequency and critical fluid velocity of sandwich structure are calculated based on differential quadrature method (DQM). The effects of different parameters such as distribution type of SWCNTs, volume fractions of SWCNTs, elastic medium and temperature gradient are discussed on the vibration and instability behavior of the sandwich structure. Results indicate that considering elastic foundation increases frequency and critical fluid velocity of system.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.245-256
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• 2014

I-core sandwich panel that has been used more widely is assembled using high power $CO_2$ laser welding. Kim et al. (2013) proposed a circular cone type heat source model for the T-joint laser welding between face plate and core. It can cover the negative defocus which is commonly adopted in T-joint laser welding to provide deeper penetration. In part I, a volumetric heat source model is proposed and it is verified thorough a comparison of melting zone on the cross section with experiment results. The proposed model can be used for heat transfer analysis and thermal elasto-plastic analysis to predict welding deformation that occurs during laser welding. In terms of computational time, since the thermal elasto-plastic analysis using 3D solid elements is quite time consuming, shell element model with multi-layers have been employed instead. However, the conventional layered approach is not appropriate for the application of heat load at T-Joint. This paper, Part II, suggests a new method to arrange different number of layers for face plate and core in order to impose heat load only to the face plate.