Thermoelastic stability of functionally graded cylindrical shells

In this paper, the problems of thermal buckling in axial direction of cylindrical shells made of functionally graded materials are discussed. Based on the Donnell’s shell theory, the equilibrium and stability equations of the cylindrical shell subjected to thermal loads are derived firstly. Then the closed form solutions are presented for the shell with simply supported boundary conditions subjected to three types of thermal loading. The material properties are assumed varying as a power form of thickness coordinate variable. The influences of the aspect ratio, the relative thickness and the functionally graded index on the buckling temperature difference are carefully discussed.