Effect of porosity on the bending and free vibration response of functionally graded plates resting on Winkler-Pasternak foundations

The effect of porosity on bending and free vibration behavior of simply supported functionally graded plate reposed on the Winkler-Pasternak foundation is investigated analytically in the present paper. The modified rule of mixture covering porosity phases is used to describe and approximate material properties of the FGM plates with porosity phases. The effect due to transverse shear is included by using a new refined shear deformation theory. The number of unknown functions involved in the present theory is only four as against five or more in case of other shear deformation theories. The Poisson ratio is held constant. Based on the sinusoidal shear deformation theory, the position of neutral surface is determined and the equation of motion for FG rectangular plates resting on elastic foundation based on neutral surface is obtained through the minimum total potential energy and Hamilton's principle. The convergence of the method is demonstrated and to validate the results, comparisons are made with the available solutions for both isotropic and functionally graded material (FGM). The effect of porosity volume fraction on Al/Al2O3 and Ti-6Al-4V/Aluminum oxide plates are presented in graphical forms. The roles played by the constituent volume fraction index, the foundation stiffness parameters and the geometry of the plate is also studied.