Abstract

In this paper, the buckling of a functionally graded plate is studied. The material properties of the plate are assumed to be graded continuously in the direction of thickness. The variation of the material properties follows a simple power-law distribution in terms of the volume fractions of constituents. The plates are subjected to be under three types of mechanical loadings, namely; uniaxial compression along the x-axis, uniaxial compression along the y-axis, and biaxial compression, two types of thermal loading, namely; uniform temperature rise and linear temperature rise. The equilibrium and stability equations are derived using the classical plate theory (Kirchhoff theory) and Navier's solution. Resulting equations are employed to obtain the closed-form solution for the critical buckling load for each loading case. The results are verified with the known data in the literature.

Key words: Buckling, classical plate theory, functionally graded materials, mechanical and thermal loads.