MECHANICAL AND THERMAL POSTBUCKLING OF SHEAR-DEFORMABLE FGM PLATES WITH TEMPERATURE-DEPENDENT PROPERTIES

An analytical approach to investigating the stability of simply supported rectangular functionally graded plates under in-plane compressive, thermal, and combined loads is presented. The material properties are assumed to be temperature-dependent and graded in the thickness direction according to a simple power-law distribution in terms of volume fractions of constituents. The equilibrium and compatibility equations for the plates are derived by using the first-order shear deformation theory of plates, taking into account both the geometrical nonlinearity in the von Karman sense and initial geometrical imperfections. The resulting equations are solved by employing the Galerkin procedure to obtain expressions from which the postbuckling load-deflection curves can be traced by an iterative procedure. A stability analysis performed for geometrically midplane-symmetric FGM plates shows the effects of material and geometric parameters, in-plane boundary conditions, temperature-dependent material properties, and imperfections on the postbuckling behavior of the plates.