Elastic buckling analysis of imperfect FGM cylindrical shells under axial compression
in thermal environments is carried out, using two different models for geometrical
imperfections. The material properties of the functionally graded shell are assumed to
vary continuously through the thickness of the shell according to a power
law distribution of the volume fraction of the constituent materials, also
temperature dependency of the material properties is considered. Derivation of
equations is based on classical shell theory using the Sanders nonlinear kinematic
relations. The stability and compatibility equations for the imperfect FGM
cylindrical shell are obtained, and the buckling analysis of shell is carried out
using Galerkin’s method. The novelty of the present work is to obtain closed
form solutions for critical buckling loads of the imperfect FGM cylindrical
shells, which may be easily used in engineering design applications. The
effects of shell geometry, volume fraction exponent, magnitude of initial
imperfections, and environment temperature on the buckling load are investigated.
The results reveal that initial geometrical imperfections and temperature
dependency of the material properties play major roles in dictating the bifurcation
point of the functionally graded cylindrical shells under the action of axial
compressive loads. Also results show that for a particular value of environment
temperature, critical buckling load is almost independent of volume fraction
exponent.
