Hygro-thermo-mechanical bending analysis of FGM plates using a new HSDT

In this paper, a novel higher-order shear deformation theory (HSDT) is proposed for the analysis of the hygro-thermo-mechanical behavior of functionally graded (FG) plates resting on elastic foundations. The developed model uses a novel kinematic by considering undetermined integral terms and only four variables are used in this model. The governing equations are deduced based on the principle of virtual work and the number of unknown functions involved is reduced to only four, which is less than the first shear deformation theory (FSDT) and others HSDTs. The Navier-type exact solutions for static analysis of simply supported FG plates subjected to hygro-thermo-mechanical loads are presented. The accuracy and efficiency of the present model is validated by comparing it with various available solutions in the literature. The influences of material properties, temperature, moisture, plate aspect ratio, side-to-thickness ratios and elastic coefficients parameters on deflections and stresses of FG plates are also investigated.