Thermomechanical bending analysis of functionally graded sandwich plates using four-variable refined plate theory

A four-variable refined plate theory is developed to investigate the thermomechanical bending of two types of functionally graded material (FGM) sandwich plates. The sandwich core of one type is isotropic with the FGM face sheets whereas in the second type, the sandwich core is FGM with the face sheets isotropic and homogeneous. The governing equations are deduced based on the principle of virtual work and the number of unknown functions involved is reduced to only four. The Navier-type exact solutions for bending analysis of simply supported FGM sandwich plates subjected to thermomechanical loads are presented. Deflections and stresses of two types of FGM sandwich plates are investigated. The accuracy and efficiency of the present theory is validated by comparing it with various available solutions in the literature. The influences of volume fraction distribution, aspect ratio and thermal load on plate thermomechanical bending characteristics are studied in detail.