Vibration characteristics of plates and shells with functionally graded pores imperfections using an enhanced finite shell element

Abstract The novelty of the current study is the development of an enhanced finite shell model using the first order shear deformation theory (FSDT) to study the vibration characteristics of imperfect functionally graded (FGM) plates and shells including porosities. Unlike standard (FSDT) theory, the proposed model presents an improvement of the FSDT via the introduction of a quadratic shear function allowing the exact representation of the parabolic distribution of the shear strains and avoiding the utilization of shear correction factors which are computationally costs. The finite element method is used for the discretization of the equations of motion and the assumed natural transverse shear strain (ANS) method is employed to avoid shear locking problems. The effect of porosity parameter and its distributions, namely even and uneven forms, is investigated through different numerical illustrative examples. The present finite shell element model provides better agreement with exact solutions in comparison by other theories. Finally, effects of different factors on vibrational behavior of imperfect FGM porous plates and shells are examined in detail.