Transient waves in plates of functionally graded materials

A numerical method is proposed for analyzing transient waves in plates of f unctionally graded material (FGM) excited by impact loads. The material pro perties of the FGM plate have a gradient in the thickness direction and are anisotropic in the plane of the plate. In the present method, the FGM plat e is divided into layer elements in the thickness direction. For an accurat e modelling of the variation of the material property of FGM plates, it is expressed by second-order polynomials in the thickness direction within an element. This can further reduce the number of elements to obtain more accu rate results effectively. The principle of virtual work is used to develop approximate dynamic equilibrium equations. The displacement response is det ermined by employing the Fourier transformation and the modal analysis, As examples, the displacement response of FGM plates excited by line, point an d distributed loads is calculated. The computations have shown the efficien cy of the present method. Copyright (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.