Buckling Analysis of Functionally Graded Plates Using Finite Element Analysis

The present study aims to give critical buckling loads of rectangular functionally graded (FG) plates for various types of boundary conditions. The finite element formulation of stability of plates is introduced and the procedure is applied to obtain critical buckling loads of a plate for two types of boundary conditions: (a) CFFC: two parallel edges are clamped and free along the other two; (b) FFFC: the plate is clamped along one edge and free along all the others. Variation of mechanical properties of the FG plate along the length and the variation along the thickness have been both considered. According to the function of elasticity modulus variation, results have been obtained for various power indices of the varying function. Results compare well with those obtained using shell elements in ANSYS.