Abstract:

The thermal buckling behaviors of functionally graded cylindrical shells subjected to temperature gradients are investigated by using the energy method. The critical buckling condition is given by employing the Ritz method. Due to the coupling effect between material properties and temperature field, the critical temperature rise is obtained via an iterative algorithm. Moreover, the effects of two kinds of temperature gradients and temperature-dependent material properties on the critical temperature inhomogeneous parameter of functionally graded materials rise are discussed. Numerical results show that   the affects the critical temperature rise significantly only in a small scope ;   the effect of structure dimension on the critical temperature rise is greater than that of the inhomogeneous parameter;   the temperature-dependent properties must be considered in the thermal buckling analysis of functionally graded cylindrical shells, otherwise the critical temperature rise would be overestimated; and   if an assumed quadratic distribution is used to approximate the actual steady one-dimension thermal conduction, the critical temperature rise is likely to be underestimated in the condition of ceramic-rich thin shell, while being over- estimated in the condition of metal-rich thick one.

Key words: functionally graded material, cylindrical property, temperature gradient shell, thermal buckling, temperature-dependent material