Postbuckling of pressure-loaded functionally graded cylindrical panels in thermal environments

A postbuckling analysis is presented for a functionally graded cylindrical panel of finite length subjected to lateral pressure in thermal environments. Material properties are assumed to be temperature dependent, and graded in the thickness direction according to a simple power-law distribution in terms of the volume fractions of the constituents. The governing equations of a functionally graded cylindrical panel are based on Reddy's higher-order shear deformation shell theory with von Kármán-Donnell-type of kinematic nonlinearity and include thermal effects. The two straight edges of the panel are assumed to be simply supported and two curved edges are either simply supported or clamped. The nonlinear prebuckling deformations and initial geometric imperfections of the panel are both taken into account. A boundary layer theory of shell buckling, which includes the effects of nonlinear prebuckling deformations, large deflection in the postbuckling range, and initial geometric imperfections of the shell, is extended to the case of functionally graded cylindrical panels. A singular perturbation technique is employed to determine the buckling loads and postbuckling equilibrium paths. The numerical illustrations concern the postbuckling behavior of simply supported, pressure-loaded, perfect and imperfect, functionally graded cylindrical panels with two constituent materials under different sets of thermal environments. The influences played by temperature rise, volume fraction distributions, transverse shear deformation, panel geometric parameters, as well as initial geometric imperfections, are studied.