Investigating Stress and Deformation Behavior of Functionally Graded Cylindrical Shells Under External Pressure

A study was conducted on functionally graded cylindrical shells that vary in thickness and are subjected to external pressure. The material properties, including Young’s modulus and density, were graded along the axial direction using three different schemes: exponential, Mori–Tanaka, and power-law. The impact of these property distributions on the stresses and deformation was analyzed. Additionally, the analysis investigated the stress and deformation behavior for varying angular velocities, material grading parameters, and pressure gradient indexes for different axial layers. The study employed the finite element method and utilized stationary total potential for the analysis. The results were validated and showed good agreement. The study revealed that functionally graded shells outperform homogeneous shells for rotating variable thickness shells under varying external pressure conditions.