Analysis of cylindrical bending thermoelastic deformations of functionally graded plates by a meshless local Petrov-Galerkin method

We analyze plane strain static thermoelastic deformations of a simply supported functionally graded (FG) plate by a meshless local Petrov-Galerkin (MLPG) method. Material moduli are assumed to vary only in the thickness direction. The plate material is made of two isotropic randomly distributed constituents and the macroscopic response is also modeled as isotropic. Displacements and stresses computed with the MLPG method are found to agree very well with those obtained from the analytical solution of the problem. The number of nodes required to obtain an accurate solution for a FG plate is considerably more than that needed for a homogeneous plate.