Dynamic response of moderately thick graphene reinforced composite cylindrical panels under the action of moving load

An attempt is made is this research to study the response of cylindrical panels subjected to a moving load. Cylindrical panel is made from a composite laminated material where each layer of the media is reinforced with graphene platelets. Also the amount of graphene platelets in the layers may be different which results in a piecewise functionally graded media. With the aid of the first order shear deformation theory of shells, Donnell type of kinematics and Hamilton principle, the basic components of energies in the panel are established. With the aid of general idea of Ritz method whose shape functions are constructed using the Chebyshev polynomials, the matrix representation of the governing equations is established. While the developed formulation is general and may be used for moving load with arbitrary path and velocity, here it is assumed that velocity of the moving load is constant and load is passing on a straight line. The obtained equations are traced in time domain via the Newmark time marching scheme. Results of this study may be used for cylindrical panels with arbitrary combinations of boundary conditions. At first convergence and comparison studies are given to assure the validity of the proposed solution method and formulation. After that, novel numerical results are given to explore the effects of different parameters. It is shown that with introduction of even a low amount of reinforcements, dynamic deflections in the panel may be alleviated significantly.