Thermo-mechanical Buckling Analysis of Non-homogeneous Open Circular Cylindrical Shells Reinforced with Singlewalled Carbon Nanotubes

In this paper, the thermo-mechanical buckling analysis of a non-homogeneous open cylindrical shell reinforced with single-walled carbon nanotubes with a uniform/non-uniform distribution on an elastic foundation under thermal and mechanical loads has been addressed. Using the minimum energy principle, the governing differential equations of this system are derived and in order to determine the properties of the reinforced composite shell, the modified mixtures law has been used. It is assumed that the properties of single-walled carbon nanotubes are acquired from molecular dynamics simulation. It is also assumed that the material properties of the reinforced carbon nanotube composites are linear in the thickness and are defined based on mixture law via a micro-mechanical model in which the nanotube performance parameter is considered. After solving these equations, the effects of geometric characteristics of the shell and material properties on the critical load and critical temperature of shell buckling are investigated.