Experimental and theoretical investigation of the thermo-mechanical deformation of a functionally graded panel

An aluminum/high-density polyethylene (HDPE) functionally graded material (FGM) has been fabricated as a key component of a multifunctional building envelope for energy efficiency and sustainability. Because of the gradual phase change of aluminum and HDPE across the thickness direction, when a free-standing FGM panel is subjected to a temperature variance, it will exhibit considerable curling deformation, which causes challenges to assemble the FGM panel into a flat multifunctional roofing panel and also to assure structural integrity under cyclic temperature change. Therefore, it is crucial to predict the thermo-mechanical behavior of the FGM panel. For this purpose, an axisymmetric refined plate theory was developed in this study for a circular FGM panel subjected to externally applied thermo-mechanical loading. The theoretical solutions are verified with experimental results, it demonstrates that the presented solution can accurately predict the thermo-mechanical behavior of the developed FGM panel and be used in the design of the proposed solar panel.