Post-buckling of FSDT of Functionally Graded Material Shell Structures

Based on the First-order Shear Deformation Theory (FSDT), this paper performs the geometric nonlinear analysis of Functionally Graded Material (FGM) shell structures. In this theory, a constant transverse shear deformation is considered and a shear correction factor is required. In order to avoid transverse shear locking, the assumed natural strain method (ANS) is incorporated in the finite element formulation. In addition, the variational principle is used to obtain the governing equation and the Newton–Raphson iterative method is adopted to solve the nonlinear equations. The constituent of FG shells consists of ceramic and metal. These constituents are graded through the thickness by varying the volume fraction using a power-law distribution. The post-buckling responses of simply supported cylindrical panel are examined. The effects of volume fraction are also investigated. Numerical results are compared with previous works. A good agreement among the present results and the literature confirms the high accuracy of the current nonlinear model.