Effects of initial stress on guided waves in orthotropic functionally graded plates

Because of the limitation of the manufacturing technology, initial stress in functionally graded materials (FGM) and structures is inevitable. Based on the theory of “Mechanics of Incremental Deformations”, the guided wave propagation in FGM plates under gravity, homogeneous initial stress in the thickness direction and inhomogeneous initial stress in the wave propagation direction is investigated. The Legendre polynomial series method is used to solve the coupled wave equations with variable coefficients. The convergence of the polynomial series method is discussed through the numerical examples. The effects of the initial stress on the Lamb-like wave and on the SH wave are investigated respectively and the numerical results show they are quite distinct. The effect of the gravity on the wave propagation can be ignored. The effects of the initial stress in the thickness direction are very different from those of the initial stress in the wave propagation direction, both on the dispersion curves and on the displacement and stress distributions.