Buckling and vibration of shear deformable functionally graded orthotropic cylindrical shells under external pressures

• The vibration and buckling of shear deformable FG orthotropic cylindrical shells.
• The cylindrical shell subjected to external pressures.
• Basic equations of FG shells with shear deformation and rotary inertia are derived.
• The Donnell shell theory and Galerkin method are used.
• The expression for frequency parameter and critical external pressures are found.

In this study, the vibration and buckling of functionally graded (FG) orthotropic cylindrical shells under external pressures is investigated using the shear deformation shell theory (SDST). The basic equations of shear deformable FG orthotropic cylindrical shells are derived using Donnell shell theory and solved using the Galerkin method. Parametric studies are made to investigate effects of shear deformation, orthotropy, compositional profiles and shell characteristics on the dimensionless frequency parameter and critical external pressures. Some comparisons among various theories have been performed in order to show the differences between the parabolic shear deformation theory (PSDT) and several higher-order shear deformation theories (HSDTs).