Thermal buckling Analysis of functionally graded plates using trigonometric shear deformation theory for temperature-dependent material properties

In this paper, thermal buckling analysis was conducted using trigonometric shear deformation theory, which employs only four unknowns instead of five. This present theory is variationally consistent, and accounts for a trigonometric variation of the transverse shear strains across the thickness and satisfies the zero traction boundary conditions on the top and bottom surfaces of the plate without using shear correction factors. The grading is provided along the thickness of the plate as per power law volume fraction variation of metal- matrix ceramic reinforced composite. The non-linear- linear governing equation problem was solved for simply supported boundary conditions. Three types of thermal loads are assumed in this work: uniform, linear and non-linear- linear distribution through- the- thickness. It is well known that material properties change with temperature variations and so the analysis was performed for both the cases: temperature- dependent (TD) and temperature- independent (TID) material properties. The impact on thermal buckling for both linear and non-linear- linear temperature variation was considered. The results were validated for the TID case with other theories and were found to be in good agreement. Furthermore, a comprehensive analysis was performed to study the impact of grading indices and geometrical parameters, such as aspect ratio (a/b) a/b ) and side- to- thickness ratio (a/h), a/h ), on the thermal buckling of the FG plate.