Free vibration behaviour of composite laminated skew cylindrical shells reinforced with graphene platelets

Current Investigation deals with the free vibration response of composite laminated shells which are reinforced with graphene platelet. Shell is in the form of skew cylinder where rectangular and skew plates and cylindrical shell are considered as especial cases. Each layer of the shell may be enriched with different amount of graphene platelets which results in a functionally graded pattern of reinforcements. The basic governing equations of the shell are obtained by means of the first order shear deformation shell theory. To implement the boundary conditions, it is more preferred to use an oblique coordinate system. Consequently, definition of strains and stresses are provided in an oblique coordinate system. After that, total kinetic and strain energies of the shell are established. Following the idea of Ritz method where the basic shape functions are Chebyshev polynomials, the motion equations of the shell associated to free vibrations are established. Results of this research are compared with the available data in the open literature and after that novel numerical results from the present study are provided to explore the effects of skew angle, opening angle, shallowness, side to thickness ratio, boundary conditions, graphene platelet weight fraction and profile. It is shown that all of these factors are important for the free vibration response of such structure.