The Analysis of thermal buckling of circular plates of variable thickness from functionally graded materials

In this paper, the thermal buckling behavior of circular plates with variable thicknesses made of bimorph functionally graded materials, under uniform thermal loading circumstances, considering the first-order shear deformation plate theory and also assumptions of von Karman has been studied. The material characteristics are symmetric to the middle surface of the plate and, based on the power law, vary along with thickness; where the middle surface is intended pure metal, and the sides are pure ceramic. In order to determine the distribution of pre-buckling force in the radial direction, the membrane equation is solved using the shooting method. And the stability equations are solved numerically, with the help of pseudo-spectral method by choosing Chebyshev functions as basic functions. The numerical results in clamped and simply supported boundary conditions and the linear and parabolic thickness variations are presented. And the influence of various parameters like volume fraction index, the thickness profile and side ratio on the buckling behavior of these plates has been evaluated.