Buckling Analysis of Functionally Graded Plates Under Mechanical Loading Using Higher Order Functionally Graded Strip

This paper is concerned with buckling analyses of rectangular functionally graded plates (FGPs) under uniaxial compression, biaxial compression and combined compression and tension loads. It is assumed that the plate is a mixture of metal and ceramic that its properties changes as afunction according to the simple power law distribution through the plate thickness. The fundamental eigen-buckling equations for rectangular plates of functionally graded material (FGM) are obtained by discretizing the plate into some finite strips, which are developed on the basis of the higher order plate theory (HOPT). The solution is obtained by the minimization of the total potential energy. Numerical results fora variety of FGPs are given, and compared with the available results, wherever possible. The effects of thickness ratio, variation of the volume fraction of the ceramic phase through the thickness, aspect ratio, boundary conditions and also load distribution on the buckling load capacity of FGM plates are determined and discussed. It is found that the buckling behavior of FGM plates is particularly influenced by application of HOPT, especially when the plates are thick.