Thermo Elastic-Plastic Analysis of Rotating Functionally Graded Stainless Steel Composite Cylinder under Internal and External Pressure Using Finite Difference Method

The thermal elastic-plastic stresses have been investigated for a rotating functionally graded stainless steel composite cylinder under internal and external pressure with general nonlinear strain hardening law and von Mises' yield criterion using finite difference method. The modulus of elasticity in the rotating cylinder varies radially according to power law and the temperature distribution satisfies Laplace heat equation in radial direction. From the analysis, we can conclude that cylinder made of functionally graded stainless steel composite material with variable thickness and variable density under thermal loading for Swift's strain hardening measure m = 0.6 is better choice of the design as compared to homogeneous cylinder. This is because of the reason that circumferential stress is less for functionally graded stainless steel composite cylinder as compared to homogeneous cylinder for Swift's strain hardening measure m = 0.6 under internal and external pressure. This leads to the idea of "stress saving" which minimizes the possibility of fracture of cylinder.