Thermally induced mechanical analysis of temperature-dependent FG-CNTRC conical shells

A numerical study is performed to investigate the impacts of thermal loading on the vibration and buckling of functionally graded carbon nanotube-reinforced composite (FG-CNTRC) conical shells. Thermo-mechanical properties of constituents are considered to be temperature-dependent. Considering the shear deformation theory, the energy functional is derived, and applying the variational differential quadrature (VDQ) method, the mass and stiffness matrices are obtained. The shear correction factors are accurately calculated by matching the shear strain energy obtained from an exact three-dimensional distribution of the transverse shear stresses and shear strain energy related to the first-order shear deformation theory. Numerical results reveal that considering temperature-dependent material properties plays an important role in predicting the thermally induced vibration of FG-CNTRC conical shells, and neglecting this effect leads to considerable overestimation of the stiffness of the structure.