Nanotechnology is science, engineering and technologyconductedat the nanoscale, which is about 1 to 100 nanometers. In recent years, carbon nanotube reinforced plates have spurred considerable interest due to the significant mechanical and thermal properties of nanotubes like high moduli of elasticity and low density. Sandwich plates are increasingly being used in aerospace, automotive, and civil engineering as well as in many other applications of modern engineering structures. Also in some specific applications such as helicopter yokes and blades, wind mill blades and robot arms, the composite structure needs to be stiff at one location and flexible at another location. In this dissertation, dynamic instability of thickness tapered CNT reinforced sandwich plates with different dimensions and various boundary conditions is investigated using spline finite strip method and a higher-order Zig-Zag deformation theory. In the higher-order Zig-Zag theory proposed by Cho and Parmerter, a linear Zig-Zag variation of in-plane displacement is combined with a cubic variation of in-plane displacement field. The Zig-Zag term represents the shear strain discontinuity between layers resulted from the transverse shear stress continuity conditions. Moreover, the cubic part accounts for the overall parabolic transverse shear stress as in Reddy’s third-order shear deformation theory. By satisfying the transverse shear stress continuity as well as the shear free surface conditions the Zig-Zag unknowns of each layer are derived in terms of the global unknown displacements of the mid-plane; therefore, the number of unknowns does not change as the number of layers increases. Consequently, this shear deformation theory is suitable for problems dealing with sandwich plates. It is assumed that the CNT reinforced layer is made from a mixture of single walled CNT and the matrix. The matrix is assumed to be isotropic and within the facesheet, the CNTs are either distributed uniformly or functionally graded. The effective properties of such reinforced structures can be computed by the rule of mixtures. The formulation and method of solution are validated by showing their fast rate of convergence and performing comparison studies with the available results in the literature. Finally the effect of various parameters such as the CNTs distributions across the plate thickness, volume fractions of CNTs, thermal environment, plate thickness ratio and different boundary conditions on the dynamic instability of plate is numerically studied. Key Words: Sandwich plate, Carbon nanotubes, Higher-order Zig-Zag deformation theory, Spline finite strip method, Dynamic instability