Nonlinear bending of FGM cylindrical panels resting on elastic foundations in thermal environments

•Both temperature-dependent material properties and heat conduction are taken into account.•Mori-Tanaka model instead of Voigt model is adopted.•Uniform temperature rise only has a small effect on the nonlinear bending behavior of FGM cylindrical panels.•Heat conduction has a significant effect on the nonlinear bending behavior of FGM cylindrical panels.

A nonlinear bending analysis is presented for a simply supported, functionally graded cylindrical panel resting on an elastic foundation in thermal environments. The panel is exposed to elevated temperature and is subjected to a transverse uniform or sinusoidal load. Material properties of functionally graded materials (FGMs) are assumed to be temperature-dependent, and graded in the thickness direction based on Mori-Tanaka micromechanics model. The formulations are based on a higher order shear deformation shell theory with a von Kármán-type of kinematic nonlinearity and include shell panel–foundation interaction and the thermal effects. A two-step perturbation technique is employed to determine the load-deflection and load-bending moment curves. The numerical illustrations concern nonlinear bending response of FGM cylindrical panels with two constituent materials resting on Pasternak elastic foundations from which results for Winkler elastic foundations are obtained as a limiting case. The effects of the volume fraction index, temperature variation, foundation stiffness as well as the character of in-plane boundary conditions are also examined.