Buckling Analysis of Cantilever Twisted FGM Plate

Abstract

The demand and application of composites are increasing nowadays. Composite materials in the form of plate or plate-like structures are widely used in wind turbine blades and ship building due to its high specific strength and stiffness. For high thermal applications, Functionally Graded Materials (FGM) are used in preference to laminated composites because of its good performance in the thermal field. The pre-twisted cantilever plates have major use in turbine blades, fan blades, compressor blades, chopper blades, marine propellers and chiefly in gas turbines. These structures are often subjected to thermal environments, and hence FGMs are a good alternative to metal plates. The present work deals with the study of buckling analysis of cantilever twisted functionally graded material plates. The analysis is done by using ANSYS, and the results are validated using ABAQUS. A SHELL-281 element having six degrees of freedom per node is employed in ANSYS. The functionally graded material plate with a uniform variation of the material property through the thickness is estimated as a laminated section containing number of layers, and each layer is taken as isotropic. The power law is used to determine material properties in each layer. From convergence studies, ten by ten mesh and twelve number of layers are found to give good accuracy. Buckling behavior of cantilever twisted FGM plate for the various parameters like twist angle, side to thickness ratio, aspect ratio and gradient index are studied.