Postbuckling of carbon nanotube-reinforced functionally graded cylindrical panels under axial compression using a meshless approach

This paper presents a postbuckling analysis of carbon nanotube-reinforced functionally graded (CNTR-FG) cylindrical panels under axial compression. Based on kernel particle approximations for the field variables, the Ritz method is employed to obtain the discretized governing equations. The cylindrical panels are reinforced by single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) which are assumed to be graded through the thickness direction with different types of distributions. The effective material properties of CNTR-FG cylindrical panels are estimated through a micromechanical model based on the extended rule of mixture. To eliminate shear locking for a very thin cylindrical panel, the system's bending stiffness is evaluated by a stabilized conforming nodal integration scheme and the membrane as well as shear terms are calculated by the direct nodal integration method. In the present study, the arc-length method combined with the modified Newton-Raphson method is used to trace the postbuckling path. Detailed parametric studies are carried out to investigate effects of various parameters on postbuckling behaviors of CNTR-FG cylindrical panels and results for uniformly distributed (UD) CNTR-FG cylindrical panel are provided for comparison. © 2013 Elsevier B.V.