Effect of carbon nanotube waviness on active damping of laminated hybrid composite shells

In this article, we investigate the effect of carbon nanotube (CNT) waviness on the active constrained layer damping (ACLD) of the laminated hybrid composite shells. In particular, the effect of CNT waviness has been studied for the case of a novel nano-tailored composite—continuous fuzzy fiber-reinforced composite (FFRC). The distinctive feature of the construction of the FFRC is that the uniformly spaced straight or wavy CNTs are radially grown on the circumferential surfaces of carbon fibers. The constraining layer of the ACLD treatment is considered to be made of vertically or obliquely reinforced 1–3 piezoelectric composite material. A three-dimensional finite element model has been developed to study the damping characteristics of the laminated FFRC shells integrated with the patches of ACLD treatment. Our results reveal that (i) the planar orientation of CNT waviness has a significant influence on the damping characteristics of the laminated FFRC shells, (ii) damping characteristics of the symmetric cross-ply, and antisymmetric angle-ply laminated FFRC shells are improved if CNT waviness is coplanar with the longitudinal plane of the carbon fiber, and (iii) for the antisymmetric cross-ply laminated FFRC shells, the performance of the ACLD patches becomes maximum for attenuating the fundamental mode when CNT waviness is coplanar with the transverse plane of the carbon fiber.