THE EFFECT OF TRANSVERSE SHEAR AND NORMAL DEFORMATIONS ON THE THERMOMECHANICAL BENDING OF FUNCTIONALLY GRADED SANDWICH PLATES

A thermomechanical bending analysis for a simply supported, rectangular, functionally graded material sandwich plate subjected to a transverse mechanical load and a through-the-thickness thermal load is presented using the refined sinusoidal shear deformation plate theory. The present shear deformation theory includes the effect of both shear and normal deformations and it is simplified by enforcing traction-free boundary conditions at the plate faces. Material properties and thermal expansion coefficient of the sandwich plate faces 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. The equilibrium equations of different sandwich plates are given based on various plate theories. A number of examples are solved to illustrate the numerical results concern thermo-mechanical bending response of functionally graded rectangular sandwich plates. The influences played by transversal shear and normal deformations, plate aspect ratio, side-to-thickness ratio, volume fraction distributions, and thermal and mechanical loads are investigated.