Three-dimensional vibration analysis of functionally graded material plates in thermal environment

Free vibration of functionally graded material rectangular plates with simply supported and clamped edges in the thermal environment is studied based on the three-dimensional linear theory of elasticity. Simply supported and clamped FGM plates with tempera tu re-dependent material properties subjected to uniform temperature rise, linear temperature rise and nonlinear temperature rise are considered. The three displacements of the plates are expanded by a series of Chebyshev polynomials multiplied by appropriate functions to satisfy the essential boundary conditions. The natural frequencies are obtained by Ritz method. The numerical results of the present approach are compared with the results of other researchers for the validation. Parametric study is performed for supported conditions, temperature fields, volume fraction indices of FGM plates. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.