Isogeometric Analysis of Graphene-Reinforced Functionally Gradient Piezoelectric Plates Resting on Winkler Elastic Foundations

Abstract

In this paper, the refined plate theory (RPT), Hamilton’s principle, and isogeometric analysis (IGA) are applied to investigate the static bending, free vibration and buckling behaviors of functionally graded graphene-platelet-reinforced piezoelectric (FG-GRP) plates resting on a Winkler elastic foundation. The graphene platelets (GPLs) are distributed in polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) as a power function along the plate thickness direction to generate functionally gradient materials (FGMs). The modified Halpin–Tsai parallel model predicts the effective Young’s modulus of each graphene-reinforced piezoelectric composite plate layer, and the rule of the mixture can be used to calculate the effective Poisson’s ratio, mass density, and piezoelectric properties. Under different graphene distribution patterns and boundary conditions, the effects of a plate’s geometric dimensions, GPLs’ physical properties, GPLs’ geometric properties and the elastic coefficient of the Winkler elastic foundation on deflections, frequencies and bucking loads of the FG-GRP plates are investigated in depth. The convergence and computational efficiency of the present IGA are confirmed versus other studies. Furthermore, the results illustrate that a small amount of GPL reinforcements can improve the FG-GRP plates’ mechanical properties, i.e., GPLs can improve the system’s vibration and stability characteristics. The more GPL reinforcements spread into the surface layers, the more effective it is at enhancing the system’s stiffness.

Keywords

• graphene-reinforced piezoelectric composite plate
• functionally graded material
• isogeometric analysis
• refined plate theory
• static elastic deflection
• free vibration