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.