Deflection and vibration analysis of higher-order shear deformable compositionally graded porous plate

In this study the finite element method is utilized to predict the deflection and vibration characteristics of rectangular plates made of saturated porous functionally graded materials (PFGM) within the framework of the third order shear deformation plate theory. Material properties of PFGM plate are supposed to vary continuously along the thickness direction according to the power-law form and the porous plate is assumed of the form where pores are saturated with fluid. Various edge conditions of the plate are analyzed. The governing equations of motion are derived through energy method, using calculus of variations while the finite element model is derived based on the constitutive equation of the porous material. According to the numerical results, it is revealed that the proposed modeling and finite element approach can provide accurate deflection and frequency results of the PFGM plates as compared to the previously published results in literature. The detailed mathematical derivations are presented and numerical investigations are performed while the emphasis is placed on investigating the effect of the several parameters such as porosity volume fraction, material distribution profile, mode number and boundary conditions on the natural frequencies and deflection of the PFGM plates in detail. It is explicitly shown that the deflection and vibration behaviour of porous FGM plates are significantly influenced by these effects. Numerical results are presented to serve as benchmarks for future analyses of FGM plates with porosity phases.