Postbuckling of FGM plates with piezoelectric actuators under thermo-electro-mechanical loadings

A postbuckling analysis is presented for a simply supported, shear deformable functionally graded plate with piezoelectric actuators subjected to the combined action of mechanical, electrical and thermal loads. The temperature field considered is assumed to be of uniform distribution over the plate surface and through the plate thickness and the electric field considered only has non-zero-valued component E_Z. The material properties of functionally graded materials (FGMs) are assumed to be graded in the thickness direction according to a simple power law distribution in terms of the volume fractions of the constituents, and the material properties of both FGM and piezoelectric layers are assumed to be temperature-dependent. The governing equations are based on a higher order shear deformation plate theory that includes thermo-piezoelectric effects. The initial geometric imperfection of the plate is taken into account. Two cases of the in-plane boundary conditions are considered. A two step perturbation technique is employed to determine buckling loads and postbuckling equilibrium paths. The numerical illustrations concern the postbuckling behavior of perfect and imperfect, geometrically mid-plane symmetric FGM plates with fully covered or embedded piezoelectric actuators under different sets of thermal and electric loading conditions. The effects played by temperature rise, volume fraction distribution, applied voltage, the character of in-plane boundary conditions, as well as initial geometric imperfections are studied.     

Vibration of thermally postbuckled carbon nanotube-reinforced composite beams resting on elastic foundations

This paper investigates the small- and large-amplitude vibrations of thermally postbuckled carbon nanotube-reinforced composite (CNTRC) beams resting on elastic foundations. For the CNTRC beams, uniformly distributed (UD) and functionally graded (FG) reinforcements are considered where the temperature-dependent material properties of CNRTC beams are assumed to be graded in the thickness direction and estimated through a micromechanical model. The motion equations are derived based on a higher order shear deformation beam theory with including the beam-foundation interaction. The initial deflection caused by thermal postbuckling is also included. The numerical illustrations concern small- and large-amplitude vibration characteristics of thermally postbuckled CNTRC beams under uniform temperature field. The effects of carbon nanotube (CNT) volume fraction and distribution patterns as well as foundation stiffness on the vibration characteristics of CNTRC beams are examined in detail.     

Axisymmetric static and dynamics snap-through phenomena in a thermally postbuckled temperature-dependent FGM circular plate

Thermal postbuckling analysis and the axisymmetric static and dynamic snap-through phenomena due to static/sudden uniform lateral pressure in a thermally postbuckled functionally graded material circular plate are performed in this research. Plate is formulated using the first order shear deformation plate theory. Thermo-mechanical properties of the plate are assumed to be temperature dependent where dependency is described according to the higher order Touloukian representation. Two types of temperature loading are considered. Uniform temperature rise and heat conduction across the thickness direction. The one dimensional heat conduction equation in the thickness direction is obtained and discreted via the central finite difference method. The obtained system of equations is nonlinear since the thermal conductivity itself is a function of the unknown nodal temperatures. Using the von-Kármán assumptions, the governing equations of the plate are obtained in a matrix representation with the aid of the conventional Ritz method whose shape functions are developed using the Gram-Schmidt process. At first thermal postbuckling analysis is performed which is a nonlinear problem with respect to both temperature and displacements. Afterwards, response of the bulged thermally postbuckled plate is obtained under the static and dynamic uniform pressure. Snap-through phenomenon may be observed in both static and dynamic loading cases, due to the immovability of the edge of the plate and the initial deflection caused by postbuckling deflection. To capture the snapping phenomenon and trace the path beyond the limit loads, cylindrical arch-length technique is used. In dynamic snap-through analysis, the effect of structural damping is also included. Numerical results of this study reveal that the structure is sensitive to the initial deflection caused by thermal postbuckling load. Increasing the temperature prior to mechanical loads enhances the snap-through intensity and also increases both the upper and lower limit loads. As shown, dynamic snap-through loads are lower than the static ones, however dynamic snap-through intensity is more than the static snap-though intensity. Furthermore, structural damping enhances the dynamic buckling loads of the plate and decreases the dynamic postbuckling deflection of the plate.     

NONLINEAR DYNAMICS OF A FGM PLATE WITH TWO CLAMPED OPPOSITE EDGES AND TWO FREE EDGES

This paper deals with the nonlinear forced vibration of FGM rectangular plate with a boundary of two edges clamped opposite and the other two free. The plate is subjected to transversal and in-plane excitations. The present research treats the material properties of the FGM plates as temperature-dependent and graded continuously throughout the thickness direction, following the volume fraction of the constituent materials according to the power law. The temperature is assumed to be constant in the plane and varied only in the thickness direction of the plate. In the framework of geometrical nonlinearity the plate is modeled and the equations of motion are obtained on Hamilton＇s principle. With the help of Galerkin discretization, the nonlinear ordinary differential equations describing transverse vibration of the plate are proposed. By the numerical method, the nonlinear dynamical responses of the FGM plate with two clamped opposite and two free edges are analyzed.     

A finite element study on the large amplitude flexural vibration characteristics of FGM plates under aerodynamic load

The large amplitude flexural vibration characteristics of functionally graded material (FGM) plates are investigated here using a shear flexible finite element approach. Material properties of the plate are assumed to be graded in the thickness direction according to a simple power-law distribution in terms of volume fractions of the constituents. The effective material properties are then evaluated based on the rule of mixture. The FGM plate is modeled using the first-order shear deformation theory based on exact neutral surface position and von Kármán’s assumptions for large displacement. The third-order piston theory is employed to evaluate the aerodynamic pressure. The governing equations of motion are solved by harmonic balance method to study the vibration amplitude of FGM plates under supersonic air flow. Thereafter, the non-linear equations of motion are solved using Newmark’s time integration technique to understand the flexural vibration behavior of FGM plates in time domain (simple harmonic or periodic or quasi-periodic). This work is new in the sense that it deals with the non-linear flutter characteristics of FGM plates under high supersonic airflow accounting for both the geometric and aerodynamic non-linearities. Some parametric study is conducted to understand the influence of these non-linearities on the flutter characteristics of FGM plates.     

Buckling analysis of sandwich plates with FGM face sheets resting on elastic foundation with various boundary conditions: an analytical approach

This paper presents an analytical investigation on the buckling analysis of symmetric sandwich plates with functionally graded material (FGM) face sheets resting on an elastic foundation based on the first-order shear deformation plate theory (FSDT) and subjected to mechanical, thermal and thermo-mechanical loads. The material properties of FGM face sheets are assumed to be graded in the thickness direction according to a simple power law distribution in terms of the volume fractions of the constituents. The core layer is still homogeneous and made of an isotropic material. An analytical approach is used to reduce the governing equations of stability and then solved using an analytical solution which is named as power series Frobenius method for symmetric sandwich plates with six different boundary conditions. A detailed numerical study is carried out to examine the influence of the plate aspect ratio, side-to-thickness ratio, loading type, sandwich plate type, volume fraction index, elastic foundation coefficients and boundary conditions on the buckling response of FGM sandwich plates. This has not been done before and serves to fill the gap of knowledge in this area.     

Postbuckling analysis of axially loaded functionally graded cylindrical panels in thermal environments

A postbuckling analysis is presented for a functionally graded cylindrical panel of finite length subjected to axial compression in thermal environments. Material properties are assumed to be temperature dependent, and graded in the thickness direction according to a simple power law distribution in terms of the volume fractions of the constituents. The governing equations of a functionally graded cylindrical panel are based on Reddy’s higher order shear deformation shell theory with a von Kármán–Donnell-type of kinematic nonlinearity and including thermal effects. Two cases of the in-plane boundary conditions are considered. The nonlinear prebuckling deformations and initial geometric imperfections of the panel are both taken into account. A boundary layer theory of shell buckling, which includes the effects of nonlinear prebuckling deformations, large deflections in the postbuckling range, and initial geometric imperfections of the shell, is extended to the case of functionally graded cylindrical panels under axial compression. A singular perturbation technique is employed to determine the buckling loads and postbuckling equilibrium paths. The numerical illustrations concern the postbuckling behavior of axially loaded, perfect and imperfect, functional graded cylindrical panels with two constituent materials and under different sets of thermal environments. The influences played by temperature rise, volume fraction distributions, the character of in-plane boundary conditions, transverse shear deformation, panel geometric parameters, as well as initial geometric imperfections are studied.     

Free vibration analysis of elastically supported functionally graded annular plates subjected to thermal environment

Free vibration analysis of functionally graded (FG) thin-to-moderately thick annular plates subjected to thermal environment and supported on two-parameter elastic foundation is investigated. The material properties are assumed to be temperature-dependent and graded in the thickness direction. The equations of motion and the related boundary conditions, which include the effects of initial thermal stresses, are derived using the Hamilton’s principle based on the first order shear deformation theory (FSDT). The initial thermal stresses are obtained by solving the thermoelastic equilibrium equations. Differential quadrature method (DQM) as an efficient and accurate numerical tool is adopted to solve the thermoelastic equilibrium equations and the equations of motion. The formulations are validated by comparing the results in the limit cases with the available solutions in the literature for isotropic and FG circular and annular plates. The effects of the temperature rise, elastic foundation coefficients, the material graded index and different geometrical parameters on the frequency parameters of the FG annular plates are investigated. The new results can be used as benchmark solutions for future researches.     

Elastic stability of inhomogeneous thin plates on an elastic foundation

We study the elastic stability of infinite inhomogeneous thin plates on an elastic foundation under in-plane compression. The elastic stiffness constants depend on the coordinate variable in the thickness direction of the plate. The elastic foundation is represented as a Winkler-type model characterized by linear and nonlinear spring constants. First we derive the Föppl–von Kármán equations by taking variations of the elastic strain energy. Next we develop the linear stability analysis of the plate under uniform in-plane compression and explicitly derive the critical loads and wave numbers for particular three cases. The effects of the material inhomogeneity, material orthotropy and loading orthotropy on the critical states are examined independently. Finally, we perform a weakly nonlinear analysis of the plate at the onset of the buckling instability. With the multiple scales method, the amplitude equations for the unstable modes that provide insight into the mode type and its amplitude are derived and then the effect of the material inhomogeneity on buckling modes are evaluated qualitatively.     

Nonlinear stability of advanced sandwich cylindrical shells comprising porous functionally graded material and carbon nanotube reinforced composite layers under elevated temperature

The nonlinear stability of sandwich cylindrical shells comprising porous functionally graded material(FGM) and carbon nanotube reinforced composite(CNTRC)layers subjected to uniform temperature rise is investigated. Two sandwich models corresponding to CNTRC and FGM face sheets are proposed. Carbon nanotubes(CNTs) in the CNTRC layer are embedded into a matrix according to functionally graded distributions. The effects of porosity in the FGM and the temperature dependence of properties of all constituent materials are considered. The effective properties of the porous FGM and CNTRC are determined by using the modified and extended versions of a linear mixture rule, respectively. The basic equations governing the stability problem of thin sandwich cylindrical shells are established within the framework of the Donnell shell theory including the von K'arm'an-Donnell nonlinearity. These equations are solved by using the multi-term analytical solutions and the Galerkin method for simply supported shells.The critical buckling temperatures and postbuckling paths are determined through an iteration procedure. The study reveals that the sandwich shell model with a CNTRC core layer and relatively thin porous FGM face sheets can have the best capacity of thermal load carrying. In addition, unlike the cases of mechanical loads, porosities have beneficial effects on the nonlinear stability of sandwich shells under the thermal load. It is suggested that an appropriate combination of advantages of FGM and CNTRC can result in optimal efficiency for advanced sandwich structures.     

Nonlinear low-velocity impact on damped and matrix-cracked hybrid laminated beams containing carbon nanotube reinforced composite layers

This paper investigates the low-velocity impact response of a shear deformable laminated beam which contains both carbon nanotube reinforced composite (CNTRC) layers and carbon fiber reinforced composite (CFRC) layers. The effect of matrix cracks is considered, and a refined self-consistent model is selected to describe the degraded stiffness caused by the damage. The beam including damping effects rests on a two-parameter elastic foundation in thermal environments. Based on a higher-order shear deformation theory and von Kármán nonlinear strain–displacement relationships, the motion equations of the beam and impactor are established and solved by means of a two-step perturbation approach. The material properties of both CFRC layers and CNTRC layers are assumed to be temperature-dependent. To assess engineering application of this hybrid structure, two conditions for outer CNTRC layers and outer CFRC layers are compared. Besides, the effects of the crack density, volume fraction of carbon nanotube, temperature variation, the foundation stiffness and damping on the nonlinear low-velocity impact behavior of hybrid laminated beams are also discussed in detail.

     

Buckling analysis of functionally graded arbitrary straight-sided quadrilateral plates on elastic foundations

As a first endeavor, the buckling analysis of functionally graded (FG) arbitrary straight-sided quadrilateral plates rested on two-parameter elastic foundation under in-plane loads is presented. The formulation is based on the first order shear deformation theory (FSDT). The material properties are assumed to be graded in the thickness direction. The solution procedure is composed of transforming the governing equations from physical domain to computational domain and then discretization of the spatial derivatives by employing the differential quadrature method (DQM) as an efficient and accurate numerical tool. After studying the convergence of the method, its accuracy is demonstrated by comparing the obtained solutions with the existing results in literature for isotropic skew and FG rectangular plates. Then, the effects of thickness-to-length ratio, elastic foundation parameters, volume fraction index, geometrical shape and the boundary conditions on the critical buckling load parameter of the FG plates are studied.     

Thermoelastic buckling behavior of thick functionally graded rectangular plates

Thermoelastic buckling behavior of thick rectangular plate made of functionally graded materials is investigated in this article. The material properties of the plate are assumed to vary continuously through the thickness of the plate according to a power-law distribution. Three types of thermal loading as uniform temperature raise, nonlinear and linear temperature distribution through the thickness of plate are considered. The coupled governing stability equations are derived based on the Reddy’s higher-order shear deformation plate theory using the energy method. The resulted stability equations are decoupled and solved analytically for the functionally graded rectangular plates with two opposite edges simply supported subjected to different types of thermal loading. A comparison of the present results with those available in the literature is carried out to establish the accuracy of the presented analytical method. The influences of power of functionally graded material, plate thickness, aspect ratio, thermal loading conditions and boundary conditions on the critical buckling temperature of aluminum/alumina functionally graded rectangular plates are investigated and discussed in detail. The critical buckling temperatures of thick functionally graded rectangular plates with various boundary conditions are reported for the first time and can be served as benchmark results for researchers to validate their numerical and analytical methods in the future.     

An exact solution for the steady-state thermoelastic response of functionally graded orthotropic cylindrical shells

We analyze the steady-state response of a functionally graded thick cylindrical shell subjected to thermal and mechanical loads. The functionally graded shell is simply supported at the edges and it is assumed to have an arbitrary variation of material properties in the radial direction. The three-dimensional steady-state heat conduction and thermoelasticity equations, simplified to the case of generalized plane strain deformations in the axial direction, are solved analytically. Suitable temperature and displacement functions that identically satisfy the boundary conditions at the simply supported edges are used to reduce the thermoelastic equilibrium equations to a set of coupled ordinary differential equations with variable coefficients, which are then solved by the power series method. In the present formulation, the cylindrical shell is assumed to be made of an orthotropic material, although the analytical solution is also valid for isotropic materials. Results are presented for two-constituent isotropic and fiber-reinforced functionally graded shells that have a smooth variation of material volume fractions, and/or in-plane fiber orientations, through the radial direction. The cylindrical shells are also analyzed using the Flügge and the Donnell shell theories. Displacements and stresses from the shell theories are compared with the three-dimensional exact solution to delineate the effects of transverse shear deformation, shell thickness and angular span.     

Non-linear analysis of functionally graded plates in cylindrical bending under thermomechanical loadings based on a layerwise theory

A layerwise theory is used to analyze analytically displacements and stresses in functionally graded composite plates in cylindrical bending subjected to thermomechanical loadings. The plates are assumed to have isotropic, two-constituent material distribution through the thickness, and the modulus of elasticity of the plate is assumed to vary according to a power-law distribution in terms of the volume fractions of the constituents. The non-linear strain–displacement relations in the von Kármán sense are used to study the effect of geometric non-linearity. The equilibrium equations are solved exactly and also by using a perturbation technique. Numerical results are presented to show the effect of the material distribution on the deflections and stresses.     

Nonlinear eccentric low-velocity impact analysis of a highly prestressed FGM rectangular plate, using a refined contact law

In the present paper, a nonlinear analysis is presented for response prediction of a low-velocity eccentric impact between a functionally graded rectangular plate and a rigid sphere or a projectile with a spherical nose. Some of the novelties of the present paper are (i) considering the more general case of eccentric impact, (ii) investigating effects of the initial in-plane loads on the impact responses of the functionally graded plates, especially for compressive loads that are comparable but not equal to the buckling loads, (iii) using a contact law that incorporates influences of the transverse variations of the material properties of the substrate layers and the plate thickness, and (iv) using nonlinear strain-displacement relations instead of using the traditional infinitesimal deformations assumption for assessment of influences of the initial preloads. Due to using von Karman strain-displacement relations and a nonlinear contact law, the governing equations are highly nonlinear. For this reason, an iterative solution scheme is employed. A sensitivity analysis is performed to investigate influences of the specifications of the plate and the indenter, the eccentric value, and the in-plane preloads on the indentation and force time histories. Results reveal that due to the resulting increase in the contact force, slightly higher damages may be expected for impacted FGM plates subjected to initial compressive in-plane loads.     

Thermal buckling of imperfect functionally graded plates

Thermal buckling analysis of rectangular functionally graded plates (FGPs) with geometrical imperfections is presented in this paper. The equilibrium, stability, and compatibility equations of an imperfect functionally graded plate are derived using the classical plate theory. It is assumed that the nonhomogeneous mechanical properties of the plate, graded through thickness, are described by a power function of the thickness variable. The plate is assumed to be under three types of thermal loading as uniform temperature rise, nonlinear temperature rise through the thickness, and axial temperature rise. Resulting equations are employed to obtain the closed-form solutions for the critical buckling temperature change of an imperfect FGP. The results are reduced and compared with the results of perfect functionally graded and imperfect isotropic plates.     

The wave propagation and dynamic response of rectangular functionally graded material plates with completed clamped supports under impulse load

In this paper, the wave propagation and dynamic response of the rectangular FGM plates with completed clamped supports under impulse load are analyzed. The effective material properties of functionally graded materials (FGMs) for the plate are assumed to vary continuously through the plate thickness and be distributed according to a volume fraction power law along the plate thickness. Considering the effects of transverse shear deformation and rotary inertia, the governing equations of the wave propagation in the functionally graded plate are derived by using the Hamilton’s principle. A complete discussion of dispersion of the FGM plates is given. Using the dispersion relation and integral transforms, exact integral solutions for the FGM plates under impulse load are obtained. The influence of volume fraction distributions on wave propagation and dynamic response of the FGM plates is analyzed.     

Non-linear analysis of functionally graded plates under transverse and in-plane loads

Large deflection and postbuckling responses of functionally graded rectangular plates under transverse and in-plane loads are investigated by using a semi-analytical approach. Material properties are assumed to be temperature-dependent, and graded in the thickness direction according to a simple power law distribution in terms of the volume fractions of the constituents. The plate is assumed to be clamped on two opposite edges and the remaining two edges may be simply supported or clamped or may have elastic rotational edge constraints. The formulations are based on the classical plate theory, accounting for the plate-foundation interaction effects by a two-parameter model (Pasternak-type), from which Winkler elastic foundation can be treated as a limiting case. A perturbation technique in conjunction with one-dimensional differential quadrature approximation and Galerkin procedure are employed in the present analysis. The numerical illustrations concern the large deflection and postbuckling behavior of functional graded plates with two pairs of constituent materials. Effects played by volume fraction, the character of boundary conditions, plate aspect ratio, foundation stiffness, initial compressive stress as well as initial transverse pressure are studied.