Three-dimensional exact solution for the free vibration of arbitrarily thick functionally graded rectangular plates with general boundary conditions

Abstract A new three-dimensional exact solution for the free vibrations of arbitrarily thick functionally graded rectangular plates with general boundary conditions is presented. The three-dimensional elasticity theory is employed to formulate the theoretical model. According to a power law distribution of the volume of the constituents, the material properties change continuously through the thickness of the functionally graded plates. Each of displacements of the plates, regardless of boundary conditions, is expanded as a three-dimensional (3-D) Fourier cosine series supplemented with closed-form auxiliary functions introduced to eliminate all the relevant discontinuities with the displacements and its derivatives at the edges. Since the displacement fields are constructed adequately smooth throughout the entire solution domain, an exact solution is obtained based on Rayleigh–Ritz procedure by the energy functions of the plate. The excellent accuracy and reliability of the current solutions are demonstrated by numerical examples and comparison of the present results with those available in the literature, and numerous new results for thick FG plates with elastic boundary conditions are presented. The effects of gradient indexes are also illustrated.