Nonlinear postbuckling of an eccentrically stiffened thin FGM plate resting on elastic foundations in thermal environments

•Nonlinear buckling of thin FGM plate reinforced by stiffeners.•Both of the FGM plate and stiffeners are deformed under thermal loads.•Using stress function, the Galerkin method and analytical approach.•Effects of temperature, elastic foundations and stiffeners are analyzed.•Some results were compared with the ones of the other authors.

This paper first time presents an analytical investigation on the nonlinear postbuckling of imperfect eccentrically stiffened thin FGM plates under temperature and resting on elastic foundation using a simple power-law distribution (P-FGM). Both of the FGM plate and stiffeners are deformed under thermal loads. The formulations are based on the classical plate theory taking into account geometrical nonlinearity, initial geometrical imperfection, temperature-dependent properties and the Lekhnitsky smeared stiffeners technique with Pasternak type elastic foundation. By applying Galerkin method and using stress function, effects of material and geometrical properties, temperature, elastic foundation and eccentrically stiffeners on the buckling and postbuckling loading capacity of the eccentrically stiffened FGM plate in thermal environments are analyzed and discussed. Some results were compared with the one of the other authors.