Elastic Buckling of Circular Annular Plate Reinforced With Carbon Nanotubes

The buckling analysis of circular annular plate reinforced by carbon nanotubes (CNTs) subjected to compressive and torsional loads with various axially symmetric boundary conditions are studied in this paper. The developed model is based on the classical laminated plate theory (CLPT). The Mori-Tanaka method is employed to calculate the effective elastic modulus of composites having aligned oriented straight CNTs. The eigenvalues of the problem are obtained by means of an analytical approach based on the optimized Rayleigh-Ritz method. The effects of CNTs orientation angles, edge conditions, geometric ratio of plate and agglomeration of the randomly oriented straight CNTs are investigated on the critical buckling loads. Extensive studies validity of the results based on available data have been carried out prior to the presentation of salient results of this analysis. POLYM. COMPOS., 32:896-903, 2011. (C) 2011 Society of Plastics Engineers