On bending, buckling and vibration responses of functionally graded carbon nanotube-reinforced composite beams

In this work, a trigonometric refined beam theory for the bending, buckling and free vibration analysis of carbon nanotube-reinforced composite (CNTRC) beams resting on elastic foundation is developed. The significant feature of this model is that, in addition to including the shear deformation effect, it deals with only 3 unknowns as the Timoshenko beam (TBM) without including a shear correction factor. The single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) are aligned and distributed in polymeric matrix with different patterns of reinforcement. The material properties of the CNTRC beams are assessed by employing the rule of mixture. To examine accuracy of the present theory, several comparison studies are investigated. Furthermore, the effects of different parameters of the beam on the bending, buckling and free vibration responses of CNTRC beam are discussed.