Thermal Buckling and Vibration Analysis of SMA Hybrid Composite Sandwich Beams

Abstract

This work studies the buckling and free vibration behavior of Shape Memory Alloy Hybrid Composite (SMAHC) sandwich beams under a thermal environment. The sandwich beams consist of layers reinforced with SMAs and a FGM core, and they are simply supported at both ends. The higher order theory is combined with the Minimum Potential Energy principle or Hamilton principle to derive the governing equations of the thermal buckling and thermal vibration problems, respectively. The material properties of the beam are assumed as temperature-independent (TID) or temperature-dependent (TD). In the last case, two different types of thermal distribution are considered, namely a uniform and a linear distribution. The results based on the proposed formulation are verified against the reference literature, with a very good matching. A parametric study checks for the influence of different effective parameters such as thickness-to-length ratios, volume fraction powers, initial strain, volume fraction of SMA wires, and temperature distribution on the overall mechanical response of the selected structural member, with useful insights from a design standpoint.