Assessment of higher order transverse shear deformation theories for modeling and buckling analysis of FGM plates using RBF based meshless approach

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to assess different five variables shear deformation plate theories for the buckling analysis of FGM plates. Design/methodology/approach Governing differential equations (GDEs) of the theories are derived by employing the Hamilton Principle. A polynomial radial basis function (RBF)-based Meshless method is used to discretize the GDEs, and a MATLAB code is developed to solve these discretize equations. Findings Numerical results are obtained for buckling loads. The results are compared with other available results for validation purpose. The effect of the span-to-thickness ratio and grading index is observed. It is observed that some theories underpredict the deflection for thick plates, while at the same time they seem to be in good agreement with other theories for thin plates. Originality/value This paper assesses the different theories with the same method to determine their applicability.