Nonlinear buckling and postbuckling of longitudinally compressed carbon nanotube-reinforced (CNTR) cylindrical shells stiffened by longitudinal or circumferential CNTR stiffeners in thermal environments surrounded by elastic medium are presented in the present study. Five linear distributions of CNT are considered for the shell-stiffener structure system and they are modeled by innovation homogenization technique for CNTR stiffeners. Based on the classical Donnell thin shell theory with von Karman's nonlinearities and the Galerkin procedure, the governing equations can be built to analyze the critical buckling compression and postbuckling compression-deflection and compression-shortening behavior. The noticeable effects of volume fraction of CNTs, shell-foundation interaction stiffnesses, uniformly distributed temperature, and geometric properties of stiffened cylindrical shells on the critical buckling compression and compression-deflection and compression-shortening postbuckling behaviors of stiffened CNTR cylindrical shells are obtained and remarked in numerical examinations.
INTRODUCTIONCarbon Nanotube (CNT) reinforced composite is known to be an advanced composite with high-performance material. The CNTs with the high aspect ratio, low density, exceptional, electro-thermo-mechanical properties can be used to enhance the electrical thermal, and mechanical properties of basic materials. By reinforcing the CNTs for the same directions into the isotropic material, Shen [1, 2], created the special type of CNT-reinforced (CNTR) composite with the functionally graded (FD) volume fraction of CNT in the thickness direction of shells. The longitudinally compressed CNTR cylindrical shells are the outstanding structures that were studied with different thermo-mechanically linear and nonlinear problems such as static buckling and postbuckling behaviors [1-3], combined loads of axial compression and external pressure [4], free and forced vibration responses [5][6][7], and dynamic stability [8][9][10][11][12]. The more complex load types as dynamical seismic loads applied for CNTR cylindrical shells were also considered and analyzed [13,14] taking into account the moisture and hygrothermal effects. An ideal for a CNTR composite material with the two-directional reinforcements of CNTs was presented [15,16] and nonlinear buckling of cylindrical