Nonlinear buckling behavior of functionally graded material sandwich cylindrical shells with tangentially restrained edges subjected to external pressure and thermal loadings

An analytical investigation on buckling and postbuckling behavior of sandwich cylindrical shells comprising functionally graded material layers and subjected to uniform temperature rise and external pressure in thermal environments is presented in this paper. Two sandwich models corresponding to functionally graded material face sheets and core layer are considered. The properties of constitutive materials are assumed to be temperature dependent and effective properties of functionally graded material are determined according to linear rule of mixture. Formulations are based on the classical shell theory taking Von Karman–Donnell nonlinearity and elastic constraint at edges into consideration. Multi-term solutions of deflection and stress function are assumed to satisfy simply supported boundary conditions and Galerkin method is applied to derive nonlinear load–deflection relations from which buckling loads and postbuckling paths are determined. The effects of sandwich configurations, material gradation, tangential constraints of edges, and temperature dependence of material properties on buckling loads and postbuckling curves are analyzed through numerical examples.