Bending of functionally graded piezoelectric rectangular plates

By introducing two displacement functions as well as two stress functions, two independent state equations with variable coefficients are derived from the three-dimensional theory equations of piezoelasticity for transverse isotropy. A laminated approximation is used to transform the state equations to those with constant coefficients in each sub-layer. The bending problem of a functionally graded rectangular plate is then analyzed based on the state equations. Numerical results are presented and the effect of material gradient index is discussed. Supported by the National Natural Sciences Foundation of China (No. 10002016).