The influence of non-linear carbon nanotube reinforcement on the natural frequencies of composite beams

In the present paper, the influences of the variation of exponent of volume fraction of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) on the natural frequencies (NFs) of the carbon nanotube-reinforced composite (CNTRC) beams under four different boundary conditions (BCs) are investigated. The single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) are assumed to be aligned and dispersed in a polymeric matrix with various reinforcing patterns, according to the variation of exponent of volume fraction of CNTs for functionally graded (FG) reinforcements. Besides, uniform distribution (UD) of reinforcement is also considered to analyze the influence of the non-linear (NL) variation of the reinforcement of CNTs. Using Hamilton's principle and third-order shear deformation theory (TSDT), the equations of motion of the CNTRC beam are derived. Under four different BCs, the resulting equations are solved analytically. To verify the present formulation, comparison investigations are conducted. To examine the impacts of several factors on the NFs of the CNTRC beams, numerical examples and some benchmark results are presented.