Three dimensional mechanical buckling of FG plates with general boundary conditions

The mechanical buckling analysis of rectangular functionally graded plates under different axial loadings is considered. The analysis is based on the small strain elasticity theory with different boundary conditions. The material properties of the plate vary through the thickness direction according to a simple power law. Three dimensional buckling solutions are obtained using the Ritz method with Chebyshev polynomials as assumed displacement functions. The convergence and comparison studies are presented and effects of the different material composition and the plate geometry (side–side ratio, side–thickness ratio) on the critical buckling loads and mode shapes are investigated.