Semi-exact solution for thermo-mechanical analysis of functionally graded elastic-strain hardening rotating disks

In this paper, distributions of stress and strain components of rotating disks with non-uniform thickness and material properties subjected to thermo-elasto-plastic loading are obtained by semi-exact method of Liao's homotopy analysis method (HAM) and finite element method (FEM). The materials are assumed to be elastic-linear strain hardening and isotropic. The analysis of rotating disk is based on Von Mises' yield criterion. A two dimensional plane stress analysis is used. The distribution of temperature is assumed to have power forms with the hotter point located at the outer surface of the disk. A mathematical technique of transformation has been proposed to solve the homotopy equations which are originally hard to be handled. The domain of the solution has been substituted by a new domain through which the unknown variable has been taken out from the argument of the function. This makes the solution much easier. A numerical solution of the governing differential equations is also presented based on the Runge-Kutta's method. The results of three methods are presented and compared which shows good agreements. This verifies the implementation of the HAM and demonstrates its applicability to provide accurate solution for a very complicated case of strongly high nonlinear differential equations with no exact solution. It is important to notice that compared with other methods. HAM needs significant more computation time and computer hardware requirements which limit its application for those problems that other methods can easily handle them. (C) 2012 Published by Elsevier B.V.