Exact Solutions for the Stability and Free Vibration of Multi layered Functionally Graded Material Hollow Cylinders under Axial Compression

Exact three-dimensional stability and free vibration analyses of simply-supported, multilayered functionally graded material (FGM) circular hollow cylinders and laminated composite ones under axial compression are presented. The material properties of each FGM layer are assumed to obey a power-law distribution of the volume fractions of constituents through the thickness coordinate. The Pagano method, which is based on the principle of virtual displacement and is conventionally used for the analysis of laminated composite structures, is modified to be feasible for the study of multilayered FGM cylinders, in which Reissner's mixed variational theorem, the successive approximation and transfer matrix methods, and the transformed real-valued solutions of the system equations are used. The present modified Pagano solutions for laminated composite cylinders are in excellent agreement with the exact 3D ones available in the literature, and those for sandwich FGM cylinders may be used as the benchmark solutions to assess the ones obtained using various two-dimensional theories and numerical models. The influence of some effects on the lowest critical load parameters of multilayered FGM cylinders and laminated composite ones is investigated, such as the derivation between using von Karman nonlinearity and full kinematic one, and the difference between using the uniform stress assumption and the uniform strain one. In addition, a parametric study with regard to some effects on the lowest frequency parameters of axially loaded, multilayered FGM cylinders is carried out, such as the magnitude of the applied compressive loads, the radius-to-thickness, length-to-radius and orthotropic ratios, and the material-property gradient index.