Effect of distributed piezoelectric segments on the buckling load of FG cylindrical micro/nano shell

The present paper investigates size-dependent buckling analysis of a functionally graded cylindrical micro/nano shell integrated with a regular pattern of piezoelectric segments based on first-order shear deformation theory and virtual work principle. The piezoelectric segments are actuated with external voltage. The nonlocal electro-elastic relations are developed in cylindrical coordinate system for both functionally graded layer and piezoelectric segments. An analytical solution is developed based on Navier’s technique for simply supported boundary conditions. A verification of results is performed using comparison with available results of literature. A full numerical analysis is given to investigate effect of various important parameters such as length to radius ratio, segment angles, radius to core-thickness ratio, segment-thickness ratio, number of segments, nonlocal coefficient to core-thickness ratio and external voltage on the buckling loads.