Effect of porosity on the thermal buckling of functionally graded material (FGM) sandwich plates under different boundary conditions

Abstract

This document deals with the effect of porosity on the buckling of functionally graded sandwich plates under a nonlinear thermal loading using the four-variable refined plate theory. Different types of functionally graded material (FGM) sandwich plates, as well as various boundary conditions were used to highlight the influence of transverse shear, which is composed of two displacement fields, one is related to transverse displacement, and the second is due to the shearing effect. The transverse shear field follows a new warping hyperbolic function. The governing equations were derived from the virtual work principle based on von-Karman nonlinear geometric strains. This study aims to examine a sandwich-type plate, composed of three layers, the core of the plate is entirely made of ceramic material, and the upper and lower faces of the plate are made of functionally graded material. To solve the governing equations, double trigonometric series were used to simplify computations instead of a highly complicated numerical method. While various parameters are considered such as the volume faction index, porosity, and geometrical configurations, the study shows a perfect agreement between the proposed model and those of different works reported in the literature.