Nonlinear Instability Analysis of Functionally Graded Sandwich Truncated Conical Shells Reinforced by Stiffeners Resting on Elastic Foundations

This paper investigates the nonlinear instability of eccentrically stiffened functionally graded (ES-FG) sandwich truncated conical shells subjected to the axial compressive load. The core of the FG sandwich truncated conical shells, assumed to be thin, is made of pure metal or ceramic materials and the two skin layers are made of a FG material. The shell reinforced by orthogonal stiffeners (stringers) is also made of FG materials. The change of spacing between the stringers in the meridional direction is considered. The governing equations are derived using the Donnell shell theory with von Karman geometrical nonlinearity along with the smeared technique for stiffeners. The resulting coupled set of three nonlinear partial differential equations with variable coefficients in terms of displacement components are solved by the Galerkin's method. The closed-form expressions for determining the critical buckling load and for analyzing the post-bucking load-deflection curves are obtained. The accuracy of present formulation is verified by comparing the results obtained with available ones in the literature. The effects of various parameters such stiffeners, foundations, material properties, geometric dimensions on the stability of the shells are studied in detail.