Nonlinear Post-Buckling of CNTs Reinforced Sandwich-Structured Composite Annular Spherical Shells

Abstract

This work presents the nonlinear post-buckling behavior of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) reinforced sandwich composite annular spherical (AS) shells supported by elastic foundations in the thermal environment. This paper takes advantage of the sandwich-structured configuration with three layers: two nanocomposite face sheets and an isotropic core to analyze the static problem. Due to the precious properties, CNTs are applied to reinforce nanocomposite face sheets of AS shells. The governing equations of the nonlinear mechanical response of CNTs reinforced sandwich-structured composite (SSC) AS shells are achieved by using the classical shell theory (CST) and taking von Kármán’s geometrical nonlinearity into account. Applying Airy’s stress function and an approximate solution, we propose a form of stress function for CNTs reinforced SSC AS shells. The detailed effects of different types of CNTs’ reinforcement and volume fractions, geometrical parameters, core to face sheet thickness ratio, Winkler and Pasternak elastic foundations on the nonlinear mechanical post-buckling analysis are examined.