The Buckling Analysis of Conical Sandwich Shells with Temperature Dependent Properties and an Improved Higher-Order Theory

Abstract

In this research paper, an improved theory is used for buckling analysis of sandwich truncated conical shells with thick core and thin functionally graded material face sheets and homogeny core and with temperature-dependent properties. Section displacements of the conical core are assumed by cubic functions, and displacements of the functionally graded material face sheets are assumed by first-order shear displacements theory. The linear variations of temperature are assumed in the through thick. According to a power-law and exponential distribution the volume fractions of the constituents of the functionally graded material face sheets are assumed to be temp-dependent by a third-order and vary continuously through the thickness. In other words to get the strain components, the nonlinear Von-Karman method and his relation is used. The equilibrium equations are obtained via minimum potential energy method. Analytical solution for simply supported sandwich conical shells under axial compressive loads and thermal conditions is used by Galerkin’s solution method. Analysing the results show that the critical dimensionless axial loads are affected by the configurations of the constituent materials, compositional profile variations, thermal condition, semi-vertex angle and the variation of the sandwich geometry. Numerical modeling is made by ABAQUS finite element software. The comparisons show that the present results are in the good and better agreement with the results in the literature and the present finite element modelling.