Thermo-mechanical analysis of carbon nanotube-reinforced composite sandwich beams

In this paper Timoshenko beam theory is employed to investigate the vibration characteristics of functionally graded carbon nanotube-reinforced composite (FG-CNTRC) Beams with a stiff core in thermal environment. The material characteristic of carbon nanotubes (CNT) are supposed to change in the thickness direction in a functionally graded form. They can also be calculated through a micromechanical model where the CNT efficiency parameter is determined by matching the elastic modulus of CNTRCs calculated from the rule of mixture with those gained from the molecular dynamics simulations. The differential transform method (DTM) which is established upon the Taylor series expansion is one of the effective mathematical techniques employed to the differential governing equations of sandwich beams. Effects of carbon nanotube volume fraction, slenderness ratio, core-to-face sheet thickness ratio, different thermal environment and various boundary conditions on the free vibration characteristics of FG-CNTRC sandwich beams are studied. It is observed that vibration response of FG-CNTRC sandwich beams is prominently influenced by these parameters.