We analyze functionally graded material (FGM) plates with two opposite
edges simply supported and the other two edges free subjected to a uniform
load. Even though an FGM plate is a kind of composite material, if the
Young’s modulus of the FGM plates varies along the thickness direction and
the Poisson’s ratio is constant in the whole FGM plate, the bending and
in-plane problems in FGM plates under transverse load only are uncoupled.
Therefore, the analytical solution to the bending problem of FGM plates is
obtained in this study by Fourier series expansions, which agrees very well
with a finite element calculation. Results show that the maximum tensile
stresses are located at the bottom of the FGM plates. However, the maximum
compressive stresses move to the inside of the FGM plates. The coefficients
defined in
this paper relate to the area and to the first and the second moments of the area under the
curve
from
to
. The
parameter
,
representing the location of the centroid of the area under the
curve, is related to the location of the neutral surfaces, and
represents the bending stiffness of the FGM plates.
Keywords
FGM plate, Fourier series expansion, finite element
analysis