Effect of Temperature-Dependent Material Properties on Nonlinear Flexural Response and Thermal Postbuckling of Shear Flexible FGM Beams: A Study Using FEM

Abstract

The effect of temperature-dependent material properties on the geometric nonlinear flexural response and thermal postbuckling behavior of shear flexible Functionally Graded Material (FGM) beams is investigated under various thermal and thermo-mechanical environments. The important aspects of the thermal and thermo-mechanical bending and thermal post-buckling of FGM beams are studied. The temperature variation across the thickness is obtained analytically and the finite element method (FEM) is used to predict the transverse deflections and stresses in the flexural analysis and the load-deflection paths for the thermal postbuckling analysis. The through thickness continuous variation of the material properties of the FGM beams is considered using the standard power law distribution. The von-Karman-type strain-displacement relations are used to account for the moderately large deflections. The FGM beams, with the classical hinged and clamped boundary conditions, are analyzed considering the axially immovable ends. The numerical results are provided to clearly bring out the importance of including the temperature dependency of the material properties to evaluate the realistic flexural response and thermal postbuckling behavior of the FGM beams subjected to thermal and thermo-mechanical loadings.