An Assessment of Thick Nanocomposite Plates’ Behavior under the Influence of Carbon Nanotubes Agglomeration

Abstract

The influence assessment of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) agglomeration on CNT-reinforced composite (CNTRC) thick plates’ behavior is the main aim of the present work. CNTs are known to agglomerate into clusters even for relatively low volume fractions, which imposes the need to characterize the effects this may introduce in structures behavior, also knowing that recent works have concluded that neglecting agglomeration phenomenon may lead to an overestimation of the mechanical properties of nanocomposites. Hence, it matters to understand how the arising of these clusters may affect the static and free vibrational behaviors of low side-to-thickness nanocomposite plates. To this purpose, the nanocomposite plate properties’ estimation is performed by using the two-parameter model of agglomeration based on the Eshelby–Mori–Tanaka approach, while for behavioral analyses one considers a Higher-order Shear Deformation Theory (HSDT) based on the displacement field of Kant, implemented through the finite element method. The analyses developed consider a set of parametric studies involving the assessment of the influence of side-to-side ratios, side-to-thickness ratios, boundary conditions, and CNTs’ distributions along the thickness. The results obtained allow concluding that the transverse deflections and fundamental frequencies of these structures are significantly influenced by the CNTs’ agglomeration.

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