Deflections, stresses and free vibration studies of FG-CNT reinforced sandwich plates resting on Pasternak elastic foundation

The present study covenants with the static and free vibration behavior of nanocomposite sandwich plates reinforced by carbon nanotubes resting on Pastemak elastic foundation. Uniformly distributed (UD-CNT) and functionally graded (FG-CNT) distributions of aligned carbon nanotube are considered for two types of sandwich plates such as, the face sheet reinforced and homogeneous core and the homogeneous face sheet and reinforced core. Based on the first shear deformation theory (FSDT), the Hamilton's principle is employed to derive the mathematical models. The obtained solutions are numerically validated by comparison with some available cases in the literature. The elastic foundation model is assumed as one parameter Winkler - Pasternak foundation. A parametric study is conducted to study the effects of aspect ratios, foundation parameters, carbon nanotube volume fraction, types of reinforcement, core-to-face sheet thickness ratio and types of loads acting on the bending and free vibration analyses. It is explicitly shown that the (FG-CNT) face sheet reinforced sandwich plate has a high resistance against deflections compared to other types of reinforcement. It is also revealed that the reduction in the dimensionless natural frequency is most pronounced in core reinforced sandwich plate.