The 3D coupled analysis of FGPM circular hollow sandwich cylinders under thermal loads

A modified Pagano method is developed for the 3D coupled analysis of simply supported, functionally graded piezo-thermo-elastic material (FGPM) circular hollow sandwich cylinders under thermal loads, in which four different surface conditions are considered. The material properties of each individual layer, constituting the cylinders, are regarded as heterogeneous through the thickness coordinate in this formulation, and then specified to obey an exponent-law dependent on this. The Pagano method, conventionally used for the analysis of laminated composite plates and shells, is modified to be feasible for the study of FGPM sandwich cylinders. The modifications include that a displacement-based formulation is replaced by a mixed formulation, a set of the complex-valued solutions of the system equations is transferred to the corresponding set of real-valued solutions, a successive approximation method is introduced in this analysis, and a propagator matrix method is developed and applied for the heat conduction and coupled piezo-thermo-elastic analyses of the FGPM sandwich cylinders. A parametric study of the influence of the radius-to-thickness ratio, thickness ratio of each layer, surface conditions, and material-property gradient index on assorted field variables, induced in the FGPM sandwich cylinders, is undertaken.