Thermal post-buckling and the stability boundaries of structurally damped functionally graded panels in supersonic airflows

In this study, the thermal post-buckling behaviors and linear flutter analysis of structurally damped functionally graded (FG) panels under a supersonic airflow are investigated. The material properties are assumed to be temperature-dependent and vary in the thickness direction of the panel. First-order shear-deformation theory (FSDT) is applied to model the panel, and the von Karman strain–displacement relations are adopted to consider the geometric nonlinearity. In addition, the damping is modeled as the Rayleigh damping, and first-order piston theory is applied for the supersonic aerodynamic load. Results are obtained for the thermal post-buckling behavior, and linear flutter analysis of FG panels with a damping effect is performed to search for the origin of the flutter. The numerical data are validated through a comparison with the previous works, and the effects of structural damping are discussed in detail for various cases.