Thermal Buckling Analysis of Inhomogeneous Rectangular Plate due to Uniform Heat Supply

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the thermal buckling analysis of isotropic inhomogeneous rectangular plate subjected to the arbitrary thermal loads. Derivation of the fundamental system of equations is based on the classical plate theory. It is assumed that the inhomogeneous material properties such as the coefficient of linear thermal expansion α, the thermal conductivity λ, and Young's modulus of elasticity E are changed in the thickness direction with the power law, while Poisson's ratio γ is assumed to be constant. As an illustrative example, we consider the thermal buckling of the isotropic inhomogeneous rectangular plates due to uniform heat supply. Numerical calculations are carried out for several cases taking into account the variations of inhomogeneous material properties, aspect ratio and thickness of the plate.