Bifurcation analysis of FG curved panels under simultaneous aerodynamic and thermal loads in hypersonic flow

This study presents a numerical analysis for aerothermoelastic behavior of functionally graded (FG) curved panels in hypersonic airflow regime. The classical plate theory is used to model the structural treatment and the von Karman strain–displacement relations are utilized to involve the structural nonlinearity. To incorporate the applied hypersonic aerodynamic loads, third-order piston theory is employed to model unsteady aerodynamic pressure in this flow regime. The material properties of a FG panel are supposed to be temperature-dependent and vary continuously through the thickness direction according to power-law distribution of the volume fraction of the constituents. The temperature distribution in the thickness direction is calculated by the solution of one-dimensional steady-state heat conduction equation. The Generalized Differential Quadrature (GDQ) method in conjunction with the fourth order Runge–Kutta method is implemented for discretization and solution of the equations. The effects of several significant parameters including Mach number, curvature, dynamic pressure, surface temperature and volume fraction index on the FG curved panel aerothermoelastic behavior and route to chaos are examined. Comparison of the obtained results with those available in the literature demonstrates the accuracy and reliability of the GDQ method to analyze the aerothermoelastic behavior of FG curved panels in hypersonic flow.