2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. This paper investigates the nonlinear dynamic buckling response of axisymmetric carbon nanotubes reinforced composite sandwich spherical caps subjected to suddenly applied pressure. To solve this problem, a finite element approach is adopted using an axisymmetric shear flexible shell element, free from spurious constraints causing shear and membrane locking especially for the case of thin shells. The geometric nonlinearity is accounted for in the formulation using von Karman's strain-displacement relations. Newmark's integration technique along with the modified Newton-Raphson iteration scheme is employed to solve the nonlinear governing equations. The critical dynamic pressure value is considered as the pressure load beyond which the maximum average displacement response shows instant growth in the time history of the shell structure. The obtained results are validated against the available analytical solutions for the case of isotropic spherical caps. A detailed parametric study is carried out to bring out the effects of shell geometry parameter, volume fraction of the CNT, core-to-face sheet thickness, temperature, boundary conditions and different types of pulse on the dynamic snap-through characteristics of spherical shells.
