Thermoelastic nonlinear vibration and dynamical response of geometrically imperfect carbon nanotube-reinforced composite plates on elastic foundations including tangential edge constraints

Abstract

The combined influences of initial geometrical imperfection, elasticity of in-plane constraints of edges, elastic foundations and elevated temperature on the nonlinear vibration and dynamical response of carbon nanotube-reinforced composite rectangular plates are investigated in this paper. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are reinforced into matrix according to functionally graded distributions. The properties of CNTs and matrix are assumed to be temperature dependent and effective properties of nanocomposite are determined using an extended rule of mixture. Governing equations in terms of deflection and stress function are established within the framework of thin plate theory including von Kármán nonlinearity, geometric imperfection and interactive pressure from elastic foundation. Analytical solutions are assumed for simply supported plates and Galerkin method is applied to result in nonlinear time differential equation. This nonlinear equation is solved using fourth-order Runge–Kutta scheme. Parametric studies are executed to examine numerous influences on the natural frequency, nonlinear to linear frequency ratio and nonlinear dynamical response of CNT-reinforced composite plates. The results reveal that increase in imperfection size results in increase and decrease in natural frequencies and the amplitude of forced vibration, respectively. In contrast, it is found that the elevated temperature reduces the natural frequencies and enhances the amplitude of forced vibration.