Vibration Analysis of Carbon Fiber Reinforced Laminated Composite Skin with Glass Honeycomb Sandwich Beam Using HSDT

In this paper, the vibration analysis of uniform laminated composite sandwich beam with a viscoelastic core was studied. The governing equation of motion of the laminated composite sandwich beam has been derived based on higher order shear deformation theory (HSDT) in finite element model (FEM). The developed finite element model has been validated in terms of natural frequencies with the experimental values and the available literature. Various parametric studies have been performed to examine the impact of the core thickness, ply orientation and aspect ratio of the uniform laminated composite sandwich beam in response to free vibration for various boundary conditions. From the results it was concluded that that natural frequencies could be increased with increasing the core thickness and decreased with increasing the aspect ratio

Synergetic effect of incorporating graphene, CNT and hybrid nanoparticles on the mechanical properties of glass fiber reinforced epoxy laminated composites

AbstractThe current study focuses on the investigation of the synergetic effect of graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs) and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) on the flexural properties, hardness and water absorption characteristics of glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) laminated composite materials. The laminated composite materials were fabricated with various configuration of filler reinforcements using vacuum assisted hand lay-up technique. Further, micromechanical analysis was performed using Halpin-Tsai model to investigate the synergistic effect of CNT/GNP hybrid glass fiber reinforced epoxy nanocomposites. It was observed that the CNT and GNP reinforced hybrid composite exhibited highest value of flexural strength and hardness; the respective values being 38% and 29% higher in comparison to the neat epoxy composite. Furthermore, among GNP and CNT, the composite containing former reinforcement exhibited better mechanical properties. The composites containing nanoparticles also exhibited better water uptake characteristic, where the weight gain for hybrid composite was 1.004%, whereas, for neat epoxy composite, the weight gain was 1.210%. This was attributed to the ability of nanofillers to restrict the intermolecular movement of the surrounding GFRP composites, which delays the relaxation of polymer chains, thereby reducing the diffusion of tiny molecules through the composites. It was also observed that the addition of GNPs has a strong effect on the elastic properties of the hybrid glass fiber reinforced epoxy nanocomposite than the addition of CNTs

ARC technique – An innovative method to assess true defect in postburn contracture release

Most commonly, skin grafts are used to resurface the raw areas resulting after the release of postburn contractures but in the extensively burned patient, donor sites may be limited. There is no accurate technique described in literature for the assessment of the true defect preoperatively. We describe a technique to accurately assess the true defect which helps to determine the amount of skin graft required preoperatively

Vibration Analysis of a Carbon Nanotube Reinforced Uniform and Tapered Composite Beams

In this study, free and forced vibration responses of carbon nanotube reinforced uniform and tapered composite beams are investigated. The governing differential equations of motion of a carbon nanotube (CNT) reinforced uniform and tapered composite beams are presented in finite element formulation. The validity of the developed formulation is demonstrated by comparing the natural frequencies evaluated using present FEM with those of available in literature. Various parametric studies are also performed to investigate the effect of aspect ratio, percentage of CNT content, ply orientation, and boundary conditions on natural frequencies and mode shapes of a CNT reinforced composite beam. It was observed that the addition of carbon nanotube in fiber reinforced polymer composite (FRP) beam enhances the stiffness of the structure which consequently increases the natural frequencies and alters the mode shapes