Nonlinear stability of functionally graded material (FGM) sandwich cylindrical shells reinforced by FGM stiffeners in thermal environment

In this paper, Donnell’s shell theory and smeared stiffeners technique are improved to analyze the postbuckling and buckling behaviors of circular cylindrical shells of stiffened thin functionally graded material (FGM) sandwich under an axial loading on elastic foundations, and the shells are considered in a thermal environment. The shells are stiffened by FGM rings and stringers. A general sigmoid law and a general power law are proposed. Thermal elements of the shells and reinforcement stiffeners are considered. Explicit expressions to find critical loads and postbuckling load-deflection curves are obtained by applying the Galerkin method and choosing the three-term approximate solution of deflection. Numerical results show various effects of temperature, elastic foundation, stiffeners, material and geometrical properties, and the ratio between face sheet thickness and total thickness on the nonlinear behavior of shells.