Nonlinear buckling of higher-order shear deformable stiffened FG-GRC laminated plates with nonlinear elastic foundation subjected to combined loads

Abstract

The nonlinear postbuckling analysis of functionally graded graphene reinforced composite (FG-GRC) plates taking into account the nonlinear effect of elastic foundation subjected to external pressure and axial compression load in thermal environment is analytically examined in this paper. Assuming that the FG-GRC laminated plates are stiffened by FG-GRC laminated stiffener system resting on a three-parameter nonlinear elastic foundation. The higher-order shear deformation plate theory (HSDPT) with the geometrical nonlinearities of von Kármán is applied to establish the basic formulations. Moreover, the smeared stiffener technique is successfully improved for the higher-order shear deformable anisotropic stiffener system by using a homogeneous model of the laminated beam. Galerkin's method is used to achieve the expressions of critical buckling loads and postbuckling load-deflection curves in explicit form. The numerical values display the influences of nonlinear elastic foundation, temperature, laminated stiffeners, material, and geometrical features on nonlinear responses of plates.