Thermo-elastic behavior of a thick-walled composite cylinder reinforced with functionally graded SWCNTs

In this article, thermo-elastic-behavior of a thick-walled cylinder made from a polystyrene nanocomposite reinforced with functionally graded (FG) single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) was carried out in radial direction while subjected to a steady state thermal field. The SWCNTs were assumed aligned, straight with infinite length and a uniform layout. Two types of variations in the volume fraction of SWCNTs were considered in the structure of the FG cylinder along the radius from inner to outer surface, namely: incrementally increasing (Inc Inc) and incrementally decreasing (Inc Dec). These are compared with uniformly distributed (UD) structure. Mori-Tanaka method was used for stress-strain analysis. Using equations of motion, stress-strain and their corresponding constitutive correlations of a polystyrene vessel, a second order ordinary differential equation was proposed based on the radial displacement which was solved in order to obtain the distribution of displacement and radial, circumferential and axial stresses. For constant temperatures at the inner and outer surfaces of the FG cylinder considered here, results in this work indicate that radial and circumferential stresses and displacement are lower for the Inc Inc FG cylinder, and the axial stresses are higher irrespective of the structure of the FG material.