Large deflection analysis of shear deformable radially functionally graded sector plates on two-parameter elastic foundations

In this paper, nonlinear bending behavior of the moderately thick radially functionally graded (RFG) solid/annular sector plates subjected to uniform and non-uniform transverse loads and resting on two-parameter elastic foundation is studied. The material properties of the constituent components of the RFG sector plate are assumed to vary continuously according to Mori–Tanaka distribution along the radial direction. Different boundary conditions including clamped and simply supports are considered. The nonlinear formulations are developed based on first order shear deformation theory (FSDT) using the von-Karman theory for large deflections and including the plate–foundation interaction. The dynamic relaxation (DR) method combined with the finite difference discretization technique is employed to solve the equilibrium equations. Effects of material grading index, sector angles, inner-to-outer radius ratio, thickness-to-radius ratio, elastic foundations and boundary conditions are studied in detail.