Static, free vibration and buckling analysis of isotropic and sandwich functionally graded plates using a quasi-3D higher-order shear deformation theory and a meshless technique

In this paper the authors derive a higher-order shear deformation theory for modeling functionally graded plates accounting for extensibility in the thickness direction. The explicit governing equations and boundary conditions are obtained using the principle of virtual displacements under Carrera's Unified Formulation. The static and eigenproblems are solved by collocation with radial basis functions. The efficiency of the present approach is assessed with numerical results including deflection, stresses, free vibration, and buckling of functionally graded isotropic plates and functionally graded sandwich plates. © 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd.