MICROELEMENT METHOD FOR 3-D ANALYSIS OF FUNCTIONALLY GRADED PLATES WITH COMPLEX BOUNDARY CONDITIONS

A microelement computational method was proposed to establish the relationship between micro-analysis and macro-calculation. The method can provide the immediate relations between macro-response of functionally graded structures and the geometric, physical and structural parameters of material components. Therefore, it is an effective numerical method for the analyses of functionally graded materials and a practical means for scale-span analyses of functionally graded structures. In this method, functionally graded change, arbitrary form of plate and complex boundary conditions can be reflected without increasing the degrees of freedom. The applicability and accuracy of the microelement method to analyze functionally graded structures under different conditions were demonstrated by examples, in which the three-dimensional distributions of mechanical quantities of functionally graded plates with several complex (including point supported) boundary conditions were given by the microelement method.