Thermo-Mechanical Post Buckling Analysis of Multiwall Carbon Nanotube-Reinforced Composite Laminated Beam under Elastic Foundation

Abstract

In present paper, buckling analysis is performed over laminated composite beam incorporating multi walled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) polymer matrix and then reinforced with E-glass fiber in an orthotropic manner under inplane varying thermal and mechanical loads by finite element method (FEM). Aim of the study is to develop a model which accurately perform the buckling deterministic analysis of multi-walled carbon nanotube reinforced composite laminated beam (MWCNTRCLB) with the evaluation of material property by applying Halpin–Tsai model. Combined Higher order shear deformation theory and Pasternak elastic foundation based on von Karman nonlinear kinematics and Winkler cubic nonlinearity respectively, are successfully implemented. Through minimum potential energy principle, generalized static analysis is performed using FEM, based on interactive MATLAB coding. The critical buckling load and critical buckling temperature is presented under the action of inplane variable mechanical and thermal load, with different boundary conditions, beam thickness ratio and MWCNT aspect ratio, variation with MWCNT volume fraction and coefficient of thermal expansion, with and without foundation for linear and nonlinear cases.

Keywords

• single and multi walled carbon nanotube
• laminated composite beam
• fem
• hsdt
• thermal buckling