An Alternative Electro-Mechanical Finite Formulation for Functionally Graded Graphene-Reinforced Composite Beams with Macro-Fiber Composite Actuator

Abstract

With its extraordinary physical properties, graphene is regarded as one of the most attractive reinforcements to enhance the mechanical characteristics of composite materials. However, the existing models in the literature might meet severe challenges in the interlaminar-stress prediction of thick, functionally graded, graphene-reinforced-composite (FG-GRC)-laminated beams that have been integrated with piezoelectric macro-fiber-composite (MFC) actuators under electro-mechanical loadings. If the transverse shear deformations cannot be accurately described, then the mechanical performance of the FG-GRC-laminated beams with MFC actuators will be significantly impacted by the electro-mechanical coupling effect and the sudden change of the material characteristics at the interfaces. Therefore, a new electro-mechanical coupled-beam model with only four independent displacement variables is proposed in this paper. Employing the Hu–Washizu (HW) variational principle, the precision of the transverse shear stresses in regard to the electro-mechanical coupling effect can be improved. Moreover, the second-order derivatives of the in-plane displacement parameters have been removed from the transverse-shear-stress components, which can greatly simplify the finite-element implementation. Thus, based on the proposed electro-mechanical coupled model, a simple C0-type finite-element formulation is developed for the interlaminar shear-stress analysis of thick FG-GRC-laminated beams with MFC actuators. The 3D elasticity solutions and the results obtained from other models are used to assess the performance of the proposed finite-element formulation. Additionally, comprehensive parametric studies are performed on the influences of the graphene volume fraction, distribution pattern, electro-mechanical loading, boundary conditions, lamination scheme and geometrical parameters of the beams on the deformations and stresses of the FG-GRC-laminated beams with MFC actuators.

Isogeometric Analysis of Graphene-Reinforced Functionally Gradient Piezoelectric Plates Resting on Winkler Elastic Foundations

“…Yang et al [34] investigated the nonlinear buckling behavior of graphene-reinforced dielectric composite arches under applied electric and uniform radial load. Fu et al [35] presented an analytical solution for typical static problems of the graphene-reinforced-composite-laminated beams integrated with piezoelectric macro-fibercomposite actuators. In conclusion, it has been discovered that a small amount of graphene reinforcements dispersed into the polymer matrix can significantly improve stiffness and has a positive effect on the structure's stability, i.e., GPLs will have a significant effect on the static and dynamic behaviors for the piezoelectric composite plate.…”