Yasin Heydarpour

In this paper, dynamic response of multilayer functionally graded graphene platelets reinforced composite (FGGPLRC) cylindrical shells in thermal environment under an impulse load is studied based on the first order shear deformation theory (FSDT) of shells. The cylindrical shells under consideration are made up of multiple graphene platelet reinforced composite (GPLRC) layers with uniformly distributed and randomly oriented graphene platelets (GPLs) in each layer. GPL concentration is assumed to be graded in thickness direction. A new differential quadrature method based on direct projection of the Heaviside function is utilized to spatially discretize the governing equations. To solve the resulting system of ordinary differential equations (ODE) in temporal domain, a recently developed multi-step time integration technique, introduced based on the non-uniform rational B-spline (NURBS), is employed. After validating the approach, the effects of the different GPLs distribution patterns, the weight fraction and dimension ratios of the GPLs, temperature change, time durations and types of impulse loading on the dynamic responses of the FG-GPLRC shells are investigated and discussed. It is shown that the addition of only little GPLs to polymer matrix considerably decreases the period of oscillatory portions of the center deflection.