Visco-elastic foundation effect on buckling response of exponentially graded sandwich plates under various boundary conditions

In the present work, a simple and refined shear deformation theory is used to analyze the effect of visco-elastic foundation on the buckling response of exponentially-gradient sandwich plates under various boundary conditions. The proposed theory includes indeterminate integral variables kinematic with only four generalized parameters, in which no shear correction factor is used. The visco-Pasternak's foundation is taken into account by adding the influence of damping to the usual foundation model which characterized by the linear Winkler's modulus and Pasternak's foundation modulus. The four governing equations for FGM sandwich plates are derived by employing principle of virtual work. To solve the buckling problem, Galerkin's approach is utilized for FGM sandwich plates for various boundary conditions. The analytical solutions for critical buckling loads of several types of powerly graded sandwich plates resting on visco-Pasternak foundations under various boundary conditions are presented. Some numerical results are presented to indicate the effects of inhomogeneity parameter, elastic foundation type, and damping coefficient of the foundation, on the critical buckling loads.