Torsional buckling and postbuckling of FGM cylindrical shells in thermal environments

A postbuckling analysis is presented for a functionally graded cylindrical shell subjected to torsion in thermal environments. Heat conduction and temperature-dependent material properties are both taken into account. The temperature field considered is assumed to be a uniform distribution over the shell surface and varied in the thickness direction. The material properties of functionally graded materials (FGMs) are assumed to be graded in the thickness direction according to a simple power law distribution in terms of the volume fractions of the constituents, and are assumed to be temperature-dependent. The governing equations are based on a higher order shear deformation theory with a von Kármán–Donnell-type of kinematic non-linearity. The non-linear prebuckling deformations and initial geometric imperfections of the shell are both taken into account. A singular perturbation technique is employed to determine the buckling load and postbuckling equilibrium paths. The numerical illustrations concern the postbuckling behavior of twist, perfect and imperfect, FGM cylindrical shells under different sets of thermal fields. The results reveal that the volume fraction distribution of FGMs has a significant effect on the buckling load and postbuckling behavior of FGM cylindrical shells subjected to torsion. They also confirm that the torsional postbuckling equilibrium path is weakly unstable and the shell structure is virtually imperfection–insensitive.     

Postbuckling analysis of axially loaded functionally graded cylindrical panels in thermal environments

A postbuckling analysis is presented for a functionally graded cylindrical panel of finite length subjected to axial compression in thermal environments. Material properties are assumed to be temperature dependent, and graded in the thickness direction according to a simple power law distribution in terms of the volume fractions of the constituents. The governing equations of a functionally graded cylindrical panel are based on Reddy’s higher order shear deformation shell theory with a von Kármán–Donnell-type of kinematic nonlinearity and including thermal effects. Two cases of the in-plane boundary conditions are considered. The nonlinear prebuckling deformations and initial geometric imperfections of the panel are both taken into account. A boundary layer theory of shell buckling, which includes the effects of nonlinear prebuckling deformations, large deflections in the postbuckling range, and initial geometric imperfections of the shell, is extended to the case of functionally graded cylindrical panels under axial compression. A singular perturbation technique is employed to determine the buckling loads and postbuckling equilibrium paths. The numerical illustrations concern the postbuckling behavior of axially loaded, perfect and imperfect, functional graded cylindrical panels with two constituent materials and under different sets of thermal environments. The influences played by temperature rise, volume fraction distributions, the character of in-plane boundary conditions, transverse shear deformation, panel geometric parameters, as well as initial geometric imperfections are studied.     

Nonlinear buckling and postbuckling of heated functionally graded cylindrical shells under combined axial compression and radial pressure

The nonlinear large deflection theory of cylindrical shells is extended to discuss nonlinear buckling and postbuckling behaviors of functionally graded (FG) cylindrical shells which are synchronously subjected to axial compression and lateral loads. In this analysis, the non-linear strain-displacement relations of large deformation and the Ritz energy method are used. The material properties of the shells vary smoothly through the shell thickness according to a power law distribution of the volume fraction of the constituent materials. Meanwhile, by taking the temperature-dependent material properties into account, various effects of external thermal environment are also investigated. The non-linear critical condition is found by defining the possible lowest point of external force. Numerical results show various effects of the inhomogeneous parameter, dimensional parameters and external thermal environments on non-linear buckling behaviors of combine-loaded FG cylindrical shells. In addition, the postbuckling equilibrium paths are also plotted for axially loaded pre-pressured FG cylindrical shells and there is an interesting mode jump exhibited.     

Postbuckling of internal pressure loaded FGM cylindrical shells surrounded by an elastic medium

This paper presents a study on the postbuckling response of a functionally graded cylindrical shell of finite length embedded in a large outer elastic medium and subjected to internal pressure in thermal environments. The surrounding elastic medium is modeled as a tensionless Pasternak foundation that reacts in compression only. The postbuckling analysis is based on a higher order shear deformation shell theory with von Kármán–Donnell-type of kinematic nonlinearity. The thermal effects due to heat conduction are also included and the material properties of functionally graded materials (FGMs) are assumed to be temperature-dependent. The nonlinear prebuckling deformations and the initial geometric imperfections of the shell are both taken into account. A singular perturbation technique is employed to determine the postbuckling response of the shells and an iterative scheme is developed to obtain numerical results without using any assumption on the shape of the contact region between the shell and the elastic medium. Numerical solutions are presented in tabular and graphical forms to study the postbuckling behavior of FGM shells surrounded by an elastic medium of tensionless elastic foundation of the Pasternak-type, from which results for conventional elastic foundations are obtained as comparators. The results reveal that the unilateral constraint has a significant effect on the postbuckling response of shells subjected to internal pressure in thermal environments when the foundation stiffness is sufficiently large.     

An exact solution for the steady-state thermoelastic response of functionally graded orthotropic cylindrical shells

We analyze the steady-state response of a functionally graded thick cylindrical shell subjected to thermal and mechanical loads. The functionally graded shell is simply supported at the edges and it is assumed to have an arbitrary variation of material properties in the radial direction. The three-dimensional steady-state heat conduction and thermoelasticity equations, simplified to the case of generalized plane strain deformations in the axial direction, are solved analytically. Suitable temperature and displacement functions that identically satisfy the boundary conditions at the simply supported edges are used to reduce the thermoelastic equilibrium equations to a set of coupled ordinary differential equations with variable coefficients, which are then solved by the power series method. In the present formulation, the cylindrical shell is assumed to be made of an orthotropic material, although the analytical solution is also valid for isotropic materials. Results are presented for two-constituent isotropic and fiber-reinforced functionally graded shells that have a smooth variation of material volume fractions, and/or in-plane fiber orientations, through the radial direction. The cylindrical shells are also analyzed using the Flügge and the Donnell shell theories. Displacements and stresses from the shell theories are compared with the three-dimensional exact solution to delineate the effects of transverse shear deformation, shell thickness and angular span.     

Postbuckling of double-walled carbon nanotubes with temperature dependent properties and initial defects under combined axial and radial mechanical loads

Buckling and postbuckling analysis is presented for a double-walled carbon nanotube subjected to combined axial and radial loads in thermal environments. The analysis is based on a continuum mechanics model in which each tube of a double-walled carbon nanotube is described as an individual orthotropic shell with presence of van der Waals interaction forces and the interlayer friction is negligible between the inner and outer tubes. The governing equations are based on higher order shear deformation shell theory with a von Kármán-Donnell-type of kinematic nonlinearity and include thermal effects. Temperature-dependent material properties, which come from molecular dynamics simulations, and initial point defect, which is simulated as a dimple on the tube wall, are both taken into account. A singular perturbation technique is employed to determine the interactive buckling loads and postbuckling equilibrium paths. The numerical illustrations concern the postbuckling response of perfect and imperfect, double-walled carbon nanotubes subjected to combined axial and radial mechanical loads under different sets of thermal environments. The results reveal that temperature change only has a small effect on the postbuckling behavior of the double-walled carbon nanotube. The axially-loaded double-walled carbon nanotube subjected to radial pressure has an unstable postbuckling path, and the structure is imperfection–sensitive. In contrast, the pressure-loaded double-walled carbon nanotube subjected to axial compression has a very weak “snap-through” postbuckling path, and the structure is virtually imperfection–insensitive.     

Thermomechanical vibration analysis of a functionally graded shell with flowing fluid

This paper reports the results of an investigation into the vibration of functionally graded cylindrical shells with flowing fluid, embedded in an elastic medium, under mechanical and thermal loads. By considering rotary inertia, the first-order shear deformation theory (FSDT) and the fluid velocity potential, the dynamic equation of functionally graded cylindrical shells with flowing fluid is derived. Here, heat conduction equation along the thickness of the shell is applied to determine the temperature distribution and material properties are assumed to be graded distribution along the thickness direction according to a power-law in terms of the volume fractions of the constituents. The equations of eigenvalue problem are obtained by using a modal expansion method. In numerical examples, effects of material composition, thermal loading, static axial loading, flow velocity, medium stiffness and shell geometry parameters on the free vibration characteristics are described. The new features in this paper are helpful for the application and the design of functionally graded cylindrical shells containing fluid flow.     

Nonlinear stability of functionally graded material (FGM) sandwich cylindrical shells reinforced by FGM stiffeners in thermal environment

In this paper, Donnell's shell theory and smeared stiffeners technique are improved to analyze the postbuckling and buckling behaviors of circular cylindrical shells of stiffened thin functionally graded material(FGM) sandwich under an axial loading on elastic foundations, and the shells are considered in a thermal environment. The shells are stiffened by FGM rings and stringers. A general sigmoid law and a general power law are proposed. Thermal elements of the shells and reinforcement stiffeners are considered. Explicit expressions to find critical loads and postbuckling load-deflection curves are obtained by applying the Galerkin method and choosing the three-term approximate solution of deflection. Numerical results show various effects of temperature, elastic foundation, stiffeners, material and geometrical properties, and the ratio between face sheet thickness and total thickness on the nonlinear behavior of shells.     

Buckling and Postbuckling of Laminated Thin Cylindrical Shells under Hygrothermal Environments

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Postbuckling of FGM plates with piezoelectric actuators under thermo-electro-mechanical loadings

A postbuckling analysis is presented for a simply supported, shear deformable functionally graded plate with piezoelectric actuators subjected to the combined action of mechanical, electrical and thermal loads. The temperature field considered is assumed to be of uniform distribution over the plate surface and through the plate thickness and the electric field considered only has non-zero-valued component E_Z. The material properties of functionally graded materials (FGMs) are assumed to be graded in the thickness direction according to a simple power law distribution in terms of the volume fractions of the constituents, and the material properties of both FGM and piezoelectric layers are assumed to be temperature-dependent. The governing equations are based on a higher order shear deformation plate theory that includes thermo-piezoelectric effects. The initial geometric imperfection of the plate is taken into account. Two cases of the in-plane boundary conditions are considered. A two step perturbation technique is employed to determine buckling loads and postbuckling equilibrium paths. The numerical illustrations concern the postbuckling behavior of perfect and imperfect, geometrically mid-plane symmetric FGM plates with fully covered or embedded piezoelectric actuators under different sets of thermal and electric loading conditions. The effects played by temperature rise, volume fraction distribution, applied voltage, the character of in-plane boundary conditions, as well as initial geometric imperfections are studied.     

Mechanical and thermal postbuckling of FGM thick circular cylindrical shells reinforced by FGM stiffener system using higher-order shear deformation theory

The postbuckling of the eccentrically stiffened circular cylindrical shells made of functionally graded materials(FGMs),subjected to the axial compressive load and external uniform pressure and filled inside by the elastic foundations in the thermal environments,is investigated with an analytical method.The shells are reinforced by FGM stringers and rings.The thermal elements of the shells and stiffeners in the fundamental equations are considered.The equilibrium and nonlinear stability equations in terms of the displacement components for the stiffened shells are derived with the third-order shear deformation theory and Leckhniskii smeared stiffener technique.The closed-form expressions for determining the buckling load and postbuckling load-deflection curves are obtained with the Galerkin method.The effects of the stiffeners,the foundations,the material and dimensional parameters,and the pre-existent axial compressive and thermal load are considered.     

Thermomechanical postbuckling of composite laminated cylindrical shells with local geometric imperfections

The effect of local geometric imperfections on the buckling and postbuckling of composite laminated cylindrical shells subjected to combined axial compression and uniform temperature loading was investigated. The two cases of compressive postbuckling of initially heated shells and of thermal postbuckling of initially compressed shells are considered. The formulations are based on a boundary layer theory of shell buckling, which includes the effects of the nonlinear prebuckling deformation, the nonlinear large deflection in the postbuckling range and the initial geometric imperfection of the shell. The analysis uses a singular perturbation technique to determine buckling loads and postbuckling equilibrium paths. Numerical examples are presented that relate to the performances of cross-ply laminated cylindrical shells with or without initial local imperfections, from which results for isotropic cylindrical shells follow as a limiting case. Typical results are presented in dimensionless graphical form for different parameters and loading conditions.     

Thermal buckling and postbuckling behavior of FG-GRC laminated cylindrical shells with temperature-dependent material properties

Thermal postbuckling analysis is presented for graphene-reinforced composite (GRC) laminated cylindrical shells under a uniform temperature field. The GRC layers are arranged in a functionally graded (FG) graphene reinforcement pattern by varying the graphene volume fraction in each GRC layer. The GRCs possess temperature dependent and anisotropic material properties and the extended Halpin–Tsai model is employed to evaluate the GRC material properties. The governing equations are based on a higher order shear deformation shell theory and include the von Kármán-type kinematic nonlinearity and the thermal effects. A singular perturbation method in conjunction with a two-step perturbation approach is applied to determine the thermal postbuckling equilibrium path for a GRC shell with or without geometric imperfection. An iterative scheme is developed to obtain numerical thermal buckling temperatures and thermal postbuckling load–deflection curves for the shells. The results reveal that the FG-X piece-wise FG graphene distribution can enhance the thermal postbuckling capacity of the shells when the shells are subjected to a uniform temperature loading.

     

Nonlinear buckling of torsion-loaded functionally graded cylindrical shells in thermal environment

Based on the nonlinear large deflection theory of cylindrical shells, this paper deals with the nonlinear buckling problem of functionally graded cylindrical shells under torsion load by using the energy method and the nonlinear strain–displacement relations of large deformation. The material properties of the functionally graded shells vary smoothly through the shell thickness according to a power law distribution of the volume fraction of the constituent materials. Meanwhile, on the base of taking the temperature-dependent material properties into account, various effects of external thermal environment on the critical state of the shell are also investigated. Numerical results show various effects of the inhomogeneous parameter, the dimensional parameters and external thermal environment on nonlinear buckling of functionally graded cylindrical shells under torsion. The present theoretical results are verified by those in literature.     

Postbuckling analysis of axially-loaded laminated cylindrical shells with piezoelectric actuators

A compressive postbuckling analysis is presented for a laminated cylindrical shell with piezoelectric actuators subjected to the combined action of mechanical, electric and thermal loads. The temperature field considered is assumed to be a uniform distribution over the shell surface and through the shell thickness, and the electric field is assumed to be the transverse component E_Z only. The material properties are assumed to be independent of the temperature and the electric field. The governing equations are based on the classical shell theory with von Kármán–Donnell-type kinematic nonlinearity. The nonlinear prebuckling deformations and initial geometric imperfections of the shell are both taken into account. A boundary layer theory of shell buckling, which includes the effects of nonlinear prebuckling deformations, large deflections in the postbuckling range, and initial geometric imperfections of the shell, is extended to the case of hybrid laminated cylindrical shells. A singular perturbation technique is employed to determine the buckling loads and postbuckling equilibrium paths. The numerical illustrations concern the compressive postbuckling behavior of perfect and imperfect, cross-ply laminated cylindrical thin shells with fully covered or embedded piezoelectric actuators under different sets of thermal and electric loading conditions. The effects played by temperature rise, applied voltage, shell geometric parameter, stacking sequence, as well as initial geometric imperfections are studied.     

A genetic algorithm optimization of ring-stiffened cylindrical shells for axial and radial buckling loads

In this research, the general axial and radial buckling optimization of ring-stiffened cylindrical shells is implemented by the genetic algorithm (GA). The stiffened shell is subjected to four constraints including the fundamental frequency, the structural weight, the axial buckling load, and the radial buckling load. In addition, six design variables including shell thickness, number of stiffeners, stiffeners width and height, stiffeners eccentricity distribution order, and stiffeners spacing distribution order are considered. In analytical solution, the Ritz method is applied and stiffeners are treated as discrete elements. The effect of the weighting coefficients of the objective functions on the optimum solution is studied. The results show that optimized stiffening a cylindrical shell leads to a lower structural weight, higher natural frequencies, and larger axial and radial buckling loads, simultaneously. In addition, the upper and lower bounds of the design variables influence the optimum results considerably. It is also found that the distributions of eccentricity and spacing of the stiffeners influence the magnitudes of the axial and radial buckling loads considerably.     

Non-linear buckling behavior of FGM truncated conical shells subjected to axial load

In this study, the non-linear buckling behavior of truncated conical shells made of functionally graded materials (FGMs), subject to a uniform axial compressive load, has been investigated using the large deformation theory with von the Karman-Donnell-type of kinematic non-linearity. The material properties of functionally graded shells are assumed to vary continuously through the thickness of the shell. The variation of properties followed an arbitrary distribution in terms of the volume fractions of the constituents. The fundamental relations, the modified Donnell type non-linear stability and compatibility equations of functionally graded truncated conical shells are obtained and are solved by superposition and Galerkin methods and the upper and lower critical axial loads have been found analytically. Finally, the influences of the compositional profile variations and the variation of the shell geometry on the upper and lower critical axial loads are investigated. Comparing the results of this study with those in the literature validates the present analysis.     

Surface free energy effects on the postbuckling behavior of cylindrical shear deformable nanoshells under combined axial and radial compressions

In the traditional continuum mechanics, the effects of surface free energy are generally ignored. However, this cannot be the case for nanostructures because of their high surface to volume ratio; surface energy plays an important role in the mechanical responses. In the present study, the nonlinear buckling and postbuckling characteristics of cylindrical nanoshells subjected to combined axial and radial compressions are investigated in the presence of surface energy effects. To this end, Gurtin–Murdoch elasticity theory is implemented into the classical first-order shear deformation shell theory to develop an efficient size-dependent shell model incorporating surface free energy effects. Subsequently, a boundary layer theory is employed including surface effects in conjunction with the nonlinear prebuckling deformations, the large postbuckling deflections and the initial geometric imperfection. Finally, a solution methodology based on a two-stepped singular perturbation technique is utilized to obtain the size-dependent critical buckling loads and equilibrium postbuckling paths corresponding to the both axial dominated and radial dominated loading cases. It is observed that for the both axial dominated and radial dominated loading cases, surface free energy effects cause to increase the both critical buckling load and critical end-shortening of shear deformable nanoshell made of silicon.     

Nonlocal shear deformable shell model for torsional buckling and postbuckling of microtubules in thermal environments

Buckling and postbuckling analysis is presented for microtubules subjected to torsion in thermal environments. The microtubule is modeled as a nonlocal shear deformable cylindrical shell which contains small scale effects. The governing equations are based on a higher order shear deformation theory. The thermal effects are included and the material properties are assumed to be temperature-dependent. The small scale parameter e₀a is estimated by matching the buckling twist angle of microtubules obtained from the nonlocal shear deformable shell model with the existing result. The results show that the small scale effect plays an important role in the postbuckling of microtubules.     

Mechanical buckling of a functionally graded cylindrical shell with axial and circumferential stiffeners using the third-order shear deformation theory

This paper deals with an analytical approach of the buckling behavior of a functionally graded circular cylindrical shell under axial pressure with external axial and circumferential stiffeners. The shell properties are assumed to vary continuously through the thickness direction. Fundamental relations and equilibrium and stability equations are derived using the third-order shear deformation theory. The resulting equations are employed to obtain the closed-form solution for the critical buckling loads. A simply supported boundary condition is considered for both edges of the shell. The comparison of the results of this study with those in the literature validates the present analysis. The effects of material composition (volume fraction exponent), of the number of stiffeners and of shell geometry parameters on the characteristics of the critical buckling load are described. The analytical results are compared and validated using the finite-element method. The results show that the inhomogeneity parameter, the geometry of the shell and the number of stiffeners considerably affect the critical buckling loads.