Thermoelastic stresses alleviation for two-dimensional functionally graded cylinders under asymmetric loading

Abstract The goal of this research study is to examine, through the finite element method, the efficiency of using two-dimensional (2D) functionally graded materials (FGMs) in lowering the elastic/thermoelastic stresses acting on cylinders. In 2D-FGMs, the properties are assumed to vary in the radial and tangential directions simultaneously, which is rarely investigated in the literature. The cylinder is subjected to asymmetric inner normal traction with/without asymmetric thermal loading. For the considered case studies, results revealed that 2D-FGMs is beneficial compared to the conventional grading. In case of considering mechanical load only, the tangential stress declines by almost 39%. Similarly, accounting for thermomechanical load resulted in radical falls for the tangential and axial stresses by around 63% and 61%, respectively. Accordingly, the von Mises stress declines dramatically with different values allowing for safe load escalation, and enhancing the cylinder’s durability. Finally, no certain values for the used tangential function’s parameters are preferred to have maximum reduction of stresses under all working circumstances, which necessitates performing optimization.