Postbuckling of sandwich plates with FGM face sheets and temperature-dependent properties

Compressive postbuckling under thermal environments and thermal postbuckling due to heat conduction are presented for a simply supported, sandwich plate with FGM face sheets. The material properties of FGM face sheets are assumed to be graded in the thickness direction according to a simple power law distribution in terms of the volume fractions of the constituents, and the material properties of both FGM face sheets and homogeneous substrate are assumed to be temperature-dependent. The governing equations are based on a higher order shear deformation plate theory that includes thermal effects. The initial geometric imperfection of the plate is taken into account. A two-step perturbation technique is employed to determine buckling loads (temperature) and postbuckling equilibrium paths. The numerical illustrations concern the compressive and thermal postbuckling behavior of perfect and imperfect, sandwich plate with FGM face sheets under different thermal environmental conditions. The results reveal that the temperature changes, the volume fraction distribution of FGM face sheets, and the substrate-to-face sheet thickness ratio have a significant effect on the buckling load and postbuckling behavior of sandwich plates. The results also confirm that for the case of heat conduction, the postbuckling path is no longer of the bifurcation type. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.