Effect of different temperature load on thermal postbuckling behaviour of functionally graded shallow curved shell panels

This article investigated numerically the postbuckling load parameter of the functionally graded shell panels under uniform and non-uniform thermal environment using nonlinear finite element method. The shell structure is assumed to be under three different thermal fields (uniform, linear and nonlinear temperature) across the panel thickness including the temperature dependent properties of each constituent. The effective material properties of the graded structure are evaluated using micromechanical rule (Voigt type) in association with the power-law distribution of the material constituent. Further, the graded shell panel model is evaluated mathematically based on the higher-order mid-plane theory and Green-Lagrange nonlinear strain deformation relations. The excess thermal distortion of the panel has been included by taking all the nonlinear higher-order strains. The equation of graded structure under the in-plane thermal load is derived by minimizing the total potential energy expression. The desired postbuckling load parameters are computed numerically with the help of a suitable MATLAB code using the present nonlinear finite element model in conjunction with the direct iterative method. The accuracy of the proposed numerical solutions have been checked initially and extended to show the significance of the proposed complex mathematical by solving various numerical examples for different geometrical and material parameters. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.