Thermal buckling analysis of sandwich plates with soft core and CNT-Reinforced composite face sheets

Previous studies on the thermal buckling of sandwich plates with composite face sheets indicate that only thin skins with high stiffness and low coefficients of thermal expansion (CTE) can lead to the desired buckling temperatures. Thus, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) that can significantly enhance thermo-mechanical properties of fibre-reinforced polymer composites are used in the present study to increase the critical buckling temperature of sandwich plates with soft core and laminated composite face sheets. First, a comprehensive series of experimental tests are conducted to evaluate the effects of nanotubes on thermo-mechanical properties of the face sheets. The experimental results indicate that using only 0.3% CNTs considerably increases the longitudinal and transverse Young’s modulus and shear modulus of the carbon fibre/epoxy composite face sheets. The obtained data also show that CNTs significantly decrease the CTE of composite skins. Subsequently, thermal buckling equations of sandwich plates with CNT-reinforced composite face sheets are derived based on piecewise low-order shear deformation theory (PLSDT). Three analytical, semi analytical, and numerical methods are used to investigate thermal buckling behaviour of the sandwich plates with various boundary conditions. To verify the results, several comparisons are performed, which show that the implemented methods can predict the buckling temperatures of sandwich plates with high accuracy. Finally, a parametric study is conducted to examine the effects of CNTs on the thermal buckling of sandwich plates for different length to thickness ratios, thicknesses of face sheets, stacking sequences of layers, and various types of boundary conditions. The results indicate that CNTs can increase the critical buckling temperature of sandwich plates by 22%–36%, based on the layup, geometrical parameters, and boundary conditions.