Thermal postbuckling behavior of shear deformable FGM plates with temperature-dependent properties

Thermal postbuckling analysis is presented for a simply supported, shear deformable functionally graded plate under thermal loading. Two cases of temperature field, i.e. in-plane non-uniform parabolic temperature distribution and heat conduction are considered. The material properties of functionally graded materials (FGMs) are assumed to be graded in the thickness direction according to a simple power-law distribution in terms of the volume fractions of the constituents, and the material properties of FGM layers are assumed to be temperature-dependent. The governing equations are based on a higher-order shear deformation plate theory that includes thermal effects. The initial geometric imperfection of the plate is taken into account. A two-step perturbation technique is employed to determine buckling temperature and postbuckling equilibrium paths. The numerical illustrations concern the thermal postbuckling behavior of perfect and imperfect, geometrically mid-plane symmetric FGM plates under different sets of loading conditions. The results reveal that the temperature dependency has a significant effect on the thermal postbuckling behavior of FGM plates. The results also confirm that for the case of heat conduction, the postbuckling path for geometrically perfect plates is no longer of the bifurcation type.