Thermal buckling in multi-directional porous plates: The effects of material grading and aspect ratio

In the present study, a trigonometric shear deformation plate theory was employed to perform a thermal buckling analysis of multi-directional functionally graded (FG) plates. During the manufacturing of the multi-directional graded plate, the formation of pores is abounded. Hence, the effect of porosity on the buckling performance was investigated by considering the variation of porosity in the plate for power law gradation variation of material properties. The adverse effect of porosity on the material properties was taken into account by employing the rule of mixture relation. Finite element results show that the thermal expansion coefficient is unaffected by the presence of porosity. For simply supported boundary conditions, the non-linear governing equations are solved for different thermal loads such as uniform, linear, and non-linear. A parametric study was performed in which the effect of grading parameters, aspect ratio, and side-to-thickness ratio under variable temperature change was studies. Critical material grading indices for multi-directional plates have been identified that help researchers and industry personnel in fabrication planning.