An analytical Solution to Transient Temperature Field in a Functionally Graded Material plate by Piecewise-Linear Nonhomogeneity Approximation Method

An analytical solution is presented to the transient temperature field in a functionally graded material plate (FGM plate) heated at its surface. The FGM plate has arbitrary nonhomogeneities of thermal properties and temperature variation only through the thickness. The transient temperature field is determined by solving the nonhomogeneous heat conduction problem in a multilayered plate with piecewise-linear nonhomogeneous thermal conductivity, and different, homogeneous specific heat and density in each layer. Numerical calculations in order to demonstrate the applicability of the present analytical method are carried out for transient temperature distributions in PSZ/SUS304 FGM plates with linear and ceramic-rich compositional distributions.