Thermo-mechanical buckling analysis of FGM plates with circular cut out

In this paper, thermo mechanical buckling of functionally graded plates (FG Plates) with circular cutout and subjected to combined thermal and mechanical loads are investigated by Finite Element Method (FEM). Unlike other studies in which the plate is subjected to only one type of loading at once, in present study it was assumed that mechanical and thermal loads are applied simultaneously. The material properties are assumed to vary across plate thickness according to power law distribution of the volume fraction of constituents. The plate formulation is based on first order shear deformation theory (FSDT) and element stiffness matrices are derived based on principle of minimum potential energy. A flexible mesh generation algorithm is prepared in which the mesh density around the hole can be controlled easily. After validating the results of developed finite element code with those available in the literature the effect of boundary conditions in edges of plate and cut out, plate aspect ratio and cut out size on thermo mechanical buckling behavior of FG plates are studied thoroughly and stability boundary graphs are presented. Finally useful conclusions are presented.