THERMOELASTIC STABILITY ANALYSIS OF IMPERFECT FUNCTIONALLY GRADED CYLINDRICAL SHELLS

Elastic buckling analysis of imperfect FGM cylindrical shells under axial compression in thermal environments is carried out, using two different models for geometrical imperfections. The material properties of the functionally graded shell are assumed to vary continuously through the thickness of the shell according to a power law distribution of the volume fraction of the constituent materials, also temperature dependency of the material properties is considered. Derivation of equations is based on classical shell theory using the Sanders nonlinear kinematic relations. The stability and compatibility equations for the imperfect FGM cylindrical shell are obtained, and the buckling analysis of shell is carried out using Galerkin's method. The novelty of the present work is to obtain closed form solutions for critical buckling loads of the imperfect FGM cylindrical shells, which may be easily used in engineering design applications. The effects of shell geometry, volume fraction exponent, magnitude of initial imperfections, and environment temperature on the buckling load are investigated. The results reveal that initial geometrical imperfections and temperature dependency of the material properties play major roles in dictating the bifurcation point of the functionally graded cylindrical shells under the action of axial compressive loads. Also results show that for a particular value of environment temperature, critical buckling load is almost independent of volume fraction exponent.