Thermal buckling analysis of metal-ceramic functionally graded plates by natural element method

Functionally graded materials (FGMs) have been spotlighted as an advanced composite material, accordingly the intensive studies have focused on FGMs to examine their mechanical behaviors. Among them is thermal buckling which has been a challenging subject, because its behavior is connected directly to the safety of structural system. In this context, this paper presents the numerical analysis of thermal buckling of metal-ceramic functionally graded (FG) plates. For an accurate and effective buckling analysis, a new numerical method is developed by making use of (1,1,0) hierarchical model and 2-D natural element method (NEM). Based on 3-D elasticity theory, the displacement field is expressed by a product of 1-D assumed thickness monomials and 2-D in-plane functions which are approximated by NEM. The numerical method is compared with the reference solutions through the benchmark test, from which its numerical accuracy has been verified. Using the developed numerical method, the critical buckling temperatures of metal-ceramic FG plates are parametrically investigated with respect to the major design parameters.