Submission Deadline: 15 September 2023 (closed) View: 165
In the last decades, composite materials are increasingly
applied in many branches of industries, due to their higher values of strength
and stiffness, superior thermal properties, and reduced weights, which can
affect the mechanical performances of beam, plate, or shell structural
applications. On the other hand, the discovery of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) or
further nano-scale derivatives of carbon, such as graphene, with their oxide,
opens a new horizon in the material science, and makes these advanced
nano-scale materials an efficient alternative to conventional micro-size
reinforcements such as carbon and glass fibers. The use of carbon-based nanofillers as reinforcement phase in polymers
enables enhanced properties within nanocomposites, namely, high stiffness,
strength, toughness, hardness, heat distortion temperature, and electrical
properties in addition to a reduced processing cost due to their exclusive
nanostructures. In a context where an increased computational demand is
required to solve even more complicated problems, this special issue discusses
about high-performance computational strategies and advanced theoretical
formulations to solve heat transfer problems; thermal and mechanical stresses
(including boundary layer and edge stresses); free vibrations and damping;
transient dynamics; bifurcation buckling, local buckling, face-sheet wrinkling
and core crimping; large deflection and postbuckling problems; effects of
discontinuities (eg, cutouts and stiffeners), and geometric changes (eg,
tapered thickness); damage and failure of sandwich structures; optimization and
design studies.