A simple plane-strain solution for functionally graded multilayered isotropic cylinders

A simple plane-strain solution is derived in this paper for the functionally graded multilayered isotropic elastic cylinder under static deformation. The solution is obtained using method of separation of variables and is expressed in terms of the summation of the Fourier series in the circumferential direction. While the solution for order n = 0 corresponds to the axisymmetric deformation, that for n = 2 includes the special deformation frequently utilized in the upper and lower bounds analysis. Numerical results for a three-phase cylinder with a middle functionally graded layer are presented for both axisymmetric (n = 0) and general (n = 2) deformations, under either the traction or displacement boundary conditions on the surface of the layered cylinder. The solution to the general deformation case (n = 2) is further utilized for the first time to find the upper and lower bounds of the effective shear modulus of the layered cylinder with a functionally graded middle layer. These results could be useful in the future study of cylindrical composites where FGMs and/or multilayers are involved.