Study on thermal buckling and post-buckling behaviors of FGM tubes resting on elastic foundations

This paper studies thermal buckling and post-buckling behaviors of functionally graded materials (FGM) tubes subjected to a uniform temperature rise and resting on elastic foundations via a refined beam model. Compared to the Timoshenko beam theory, the number of unknowns of this model are the same and no correction factors are required. The material properties of the FGM tube vary continuously in the radial direction according to a power function. Two ends of the tube are assumed to be simply supported and in-plane boundary conditions are immovable. Energy variation principle is employed to establish the governing equations. A two-step perturbation method is adopted to determine the critical thermal buckling loads and post-buckling paths of the tubes with arbitrary radial non-homogeneity. Through detailed parametric studies, it can be found that the tube has much higher buckling temperature and post-buckling strength when it is supported by an elastic foundation.