• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.48 no.4
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• pp.547-567
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• 2013

Nonlinear behavior of functionally graded material (FGM) plates under thermal loads is investigated here using an efficient sinusoidal shear deformation theory. The displacement field is chosen based on assumptions that the in-plane and transverse displacements consist of bending and shear components, and the shear components of in-plane displacements give rise to the sinusoidal distribution of transverse shear stress through the thickness in such a way that shear stresses vanish on the plate surfaces. Therefore, there is no need to use shear correction factor. Unlike the conventional sinusoidal shear deformation theory, the proposed efficient sinusoidal shear deformation theory contains only four unknowns. The material is graded in the thickness direction and a simple power law based on the rule of mixture is used to estimate the effective material properties. The neutral surface position for such FGM plates is determined and the sinusoidal shear deformation theory based on exact neutral surface position is employed here. There is no stretching-bending coupling effect in the neutral surface-based formulation, and consequently, the governing equations and boundary conditions of functionally graded plates based on neutral surface have the simple forms as those of isotropic plates. The non-linear strain-displacement relations are also taken into consideration. The thermal loads are assumed as uniform, linear and non-linear temperature rises across the thickness direction. Closed-form solutions are presented to calculate the critical buckling temperature, which are useful for engineers in design. Numerical results are presented for the present efficient sinusoidal shear deformation theory, demonstrating its importance and accuracy in comparison to other theories.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.93-110
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• 2015

The thermomechanical bending response of anti-symmetric cross-ply composite plates is investigated by the use of the simple four variable sinusoidal plate theory. The theory accounts for sinusoidal distribution of transverse shear stress, and satisfies the free transverse shear stress conditions on the top and bottom surfaces of the plate without using shear correction factor. By dividing the transverse displacement into bending and shear parts, the number of unknowns and governing equations for the present theory is reduced, significantly facilitating engineering analysis. The validity of the present theory is demonstrated by comparison with solutions available in the literature. Numerical results are presented to demonstrate the behavior of the system. The influences of aspect ratio, side-to-thickness ratio, thermal expansion coefficients ratio and stacking sequence on the thermally induced response are studied. The present study is relevant to aerospace, chemical process and nuclear engineering structures which may be subjected to intense thermal loads.

• Advances in nano research
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.279-298
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• 2018

Present investigation deals with the free vibration characteristics of nanoscale-beams resting on elastic Pasternak's foundation based on nonlocal strain-gradient theory and a higher order hyperbolic beam model which captures shear deformation effect without using any shear correction factor. The nanobeam is lying on two-parameters elastic foundation consist of lower spring layers as well as a shear layer. Nonlocal strain gradient theory takes into account two scale parameters for modeling the small size effects of nanostructures more accurately. Hamilton's principal is utilized to derive the governing equations of embedded strain gradient nanobeam and, after that, analytical solutions are provided for simply supported conditions to solve the governing equations. The obtained results are compared with those predicted by the previous articles available in literature. Finally, the impacts of nonlocal parameter, length scale parameter, slenderness ratio, elastic medium, on vibration frequencies of nanosize beams are all evaluated.

• Advances in materials Research
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.77-89
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• 2014

In the present article, the thermal buckling of zigzag single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) is studied using a nonlocal refined shear deformation beam theory and Von-Karman geometric nonlinearity. The model developed simulates both small scale effects and higher-order variation of transverse shear strain through the depth of the nanobeam. Furthermore the present formulation also accommodates stress-free boundary conditions on the top and bottom surfaces of the nanobeam. A shear correction factor, therefore, is not required. The equivalent Young's modulus and shear modulus for zigzag SWCNTs are derived using an energy-equivalent model. The present study illustrates that the thermal buckling properties of SWCNTs are strongly dependent on the scale effect and additionally on the chirality of zigzag carbon nanotube. Some illustrative examples are also presented to verify the present formulation and solutions. Good agreement is observed.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.60 no.4
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• pp.547-565
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• 2016

In this work a new 3-unknown non-polynomial shear deformation theory for the buckling and vibration analyses of functionally graded material (FGM) sandwich plates is presented. The present theory accounts for non-linear in plane displacement and constant transverse displacement through the plate thickness, complies with plate surface boundary conditions, and in this manner a shear correction factor is not required. The main advantage of this theory is that, in addition to including the shear deformation effect, the displacement field is modelled with only 3 unknowns as the case of the classical plate theory (CPT) and which is even less than the first order shear deformation theory (FSDT). The plate properties are assumed to vary according to a power law distribution of the volume fraction of the constituents. Equations of motion are derived from the Hamilton's principle. Analytical solutions of natural frequency and critical buckling load for functionally graded sandwich plates are obtained using the Navier solution. The results obtained for plate with various thickness ratios using the present non-polynomial plate theory are not only substantially more accurate than those obtained using the classical plate theory, but are almost comparable to those obtained using higher order theories with more number of unknown functions.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.64 no.2
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• pp.145-153
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• 2017

In this article, a novel simple higher-order shear deformation theory for bending and free vibration analysis of functionally graded (FG) beams is proposed. The beauty of this theory relies on its 2-unknowns displacement field as the Euler-Bernoulli beam theory, which is even less than the Timoshenko beam theory. A shear correction factor is, therefore, not needed. Equations of motion are obtained via Hamilton's principle. Analytical solutions for the bending and free vibration analysis are given for simply supported beams. Efficacy of the proposed model is shown through illustrative examples for bending and dynamic of FG beams. The numerical results obtained are compared with those of other higher-order shear deformation beam theory results. The results obtained are found to be accurate.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.371-387
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• 2019

In the present paper, a simple refined nth-higher-order shear deformation theory is applied for the free vibration analysis of laminated composite plates. The proposed displacement field is based on a novel kinematic in which include the undetermined integral terms and contains only four unknowns, as against five or more in case of other higher-order theories. The present theory accounts for adequate distribution of the transverse shear strains through the plate thickness and satisfies the shear stress-free boundary conditions on the top and bottom surfaces of the plate, therefore, it does not require problem dependent shear correction factor. The governing equations of motion are derived from Hamilton's principle and solved via Navier-type to obtain closed form solutions. The numerical results of non-dimensional natural frequencies obtained by using the present theory are presented and compared with those of other theories available in the literature to verify the validity of present solutions. It can be concluded that the present refined theory is accurate and efficient in predicting the natural frequencies of isotropic, orthotropic and laminated composite plates.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.509-518
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• 2017

The objective of the present paper is to investigate the bending behavior with stretching effect of carbon nanotube-reinforced composite (CNTRC) beams. The beams resting on the Pasternak elastic foundation, including a shear layer and Winkler spring, are considered. 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 estimated by using the rule of mixture. The significant feature of this model is that, in addition to including the shear deformation effect and stretching effect it deals with only 4 unknowns 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. The equilibrium equations have been obtained using the principle of virtual displacements. The mathematical models provided in this paper are numerically validated by comparison with some available results. New results of bending analyses of CNTRC beams based on the present theory with stretching effect is presented and discussed in details. the effects of different parameters of the beam on the bending responses of CNTRC beam are discussed.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.75-89
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• 2020

The current paper illustrates the effect of in-plane varying compressive force on critical buckling loads and buckling modes of sandwich composite laminated beam rested on elastic foundation. To generalize a proposed model, unified higher order shear deformation beam theories are exploited through analysis; those satisfy the parabolic variation of shear across the thickness. Therefore, there is no need for shear correction factor. Winkler and Pasternak elastic foundations are presented to consider the effect of any elastic medium surrounding beam structure. The Hamilton's principle is proposed to derive the equilibrium equations of unified sandwich composite laminated beams. Differential quadrature numerical method (DQNM) is used to discretize the differential equilibrium equations in spatial direction. After that, eigenvalue problem is solved to obtain the buckling loads and associated mode shapes. The proposed model is validated with previous published works and good matching is observed. The numerical results are carried out to show effects of axial load functions, lamination thicknesses, orthotropy and elastic foundation constants on the buckling loads and mode shapes of sandwich composite beam. This model is important in designing of aircrafts and ships when non-uniform compressive load and shear loading is dominated.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.54 no.4
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• pp.693-710
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• 2015

This paper presents a nonlocal shear deformation beam theory for bending, buckling, and vibration of functionally graded (FG) nanobeams using the nonlocal differential constitutive relations of Eringen. The developed theory account for higher-order variation of transverse shear strain through the depth of the nanobeam, and satisfy the stress-free boundary conditions on the top and bottom surfaces of the nanobeam. A shear correction factor, therefore, is not required. In addition, this nonlocal nanobeam model incorporates the length scale parameter which can capture the small scale effect and it has strong similarities with Euler-Bernoulli beam model in some aspects such as equations of motion, boundary conditions, and stress resultant expressions. The material properties of the FG nanobeam are assumed to vary in the thickness direction. The equations of motion are derived from Hamilton's principle. Analytical solutions are presented for a simply supported FG nanobeam, and the obtained results compare well with those predicted by the nonlocal Timoshenko beam theory.