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We present a computational study that develops isogeometric analysis based on higher-order smooth NURBS basis functions for the analysis of in-plane laminated composites. Focusing on the stress, vibration and stability analysis of angle-ply and cross-ply 2D structures, we compare the convergence of the strain energy error and selected stress components, eigen-frequencies and buckling loads according to overkill solutions. Our results clearly demonstrate that for in-plane laminated composite structures, isogeometric analysis is able to provide the same accuracy at a significantly reduced number of degrees of freedom with respect to standard finite elements. In particular, we observe that the smoothness of spline basis functions enables high-quality stress solutions, which are superior to the ones obtained with conventional finite elements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quasi-three-dimensional (3D) stability and free vibration analyses of bi-axially loaded, simply-supported, sandwich piezoelectric plates with an embedded either a functionally graded (FG) carbon nanotube-reinforced composite (CNTRC) core or a multilayered fiber-reinforced composite (FRC) one are presented. Three different distributions of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) through the thickness of the CNTRC core, i.e. uniformly distributed and FG V-, rhombus- and X-type variations, are considered, and the effective material properties of the CNTRC core are estimated using the rule of mixtures. The Pagano method, which is conventionally used for the analysis of multilayered FRC plates, is modified to be feasible for the study of sandwich hybrid CNTRC and piezoelectric ones, in which Reissner mixed variational theorem, the successive approximation and transfer matrix methods, and the transformed real-valued solutions of the system equations are used. The modified Pagano solutions for the stability and free vibration of multilayered hybrid FRC and piezoelectric plates are in excellent agreement with the exact 3D ones available in the literature, and those for sandwich hybrid CNTRC and piezoelectric plates may be used as the benchmark solutions to assess the ones obtained by using various 2D theories and numerical models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]