Buckling of thick functionally graded plates under mechanical and thermal loads

Buckling analysis of rectangular thick functionally graded plates under mechanical and thermal loads is presented in this paper. It is assumed that the non-homogeneous mechanical properties vary linearly through the thickness of the plate. The plate is assumed to be under three types of mechanical loadings, namely; uniaxial compression, biaxial compression, and biaxial compression and tension and two types of thermal loadings, namely; uniform temperature rise and non-linear temperature rise through the thickness. The equilibrium and stability equations are derived using the third order shear deformation plate theory. Resulting equations are employed to obtain the closed-form solution for the critical buckling load for each loading case. The results are verified with the known data in the literature.