Elastodynamic analysis of quadrilateral CNT-reinforced functionally graded composite plates using FSDT element-free method

An elastodynamic analysis of quadrilateral carbon nanotube (CNT) reinforced functionally graded composite plates subjected to a transverse sudden dynamic load is studied. Based on the first-order shear deformation theory (FSDT), the element-free IMLS-Ritz method is extended to conduct a numerical simulation for this study. A numerical time integration for the dynamic problems is performed using the Newmark-β method. To verify the stability and accuracy of the element-free IMLS-Ritz method, convergence studies are carried out for an isotropic square plate with different support sizes and different numbers of nodes. Detailed numerical simulations are further carried out to investigate the effect of CNT volume fraction, CNT distribution type, side angles, area of quadrilateral plate, plate width-to-thickness ratio and boundary condition on the dynamic behaviors of quadrilateral CNT reinforced composite plates.