Thermal Buckling Analysis of Perforated Functionally Graded Plates

Abstract

In this research, the buckling behavior of functionally graded (FG) plates under thermal loading is investigated based on finite element analysis. It is assumed the plate is subjected to a uniform temperature rise across plate thickness. First-order shear deformation theory (FSDT) is utilized for developing the solution method. By using an appropriately designed mesh structure for a perforated plate, the critical thermal buckling temperature is obtained by numerical solution of the problem based on finite element method (FEM). The FG plate is perforated by multiple cutouts. The number of cutouts is assumed one, two, four, or six. Also different geometrical shapes of cutouts including triangle, square, rhombus, pentagon, hexagon, and circle are considered. The influence of the number of cutouts and their geometrical shapes on thermal buckling response is investigated. The effects of the number of sides of cutouts from three (triangle) to infinity (circle) are discussed. Two different boundary conditions are taken into account. Also the influences of the distance between the cutouts and the orientation of cutouts on critical buckling temperature are studied. In addition, the effects of the orientation of ellipse cutouts are studied. Some remarkable conclusions are gained that can be useful in practical applications.