Exact solutions for the symmetric elastoplastic response of functionally graded pressure vessels

With the development of functionally graded (FG) composite material technology, mechanical analyses of FG pressure vessels have attracted attention. Due to the non-uniform stress distributions inside such vessels, irre-versible plastic deformation first occurs in some zones of the structure under the action of external loads. It is necessary to perform an elastoplastic analysis of FG structures to determine their load-bearing capacities. In this paper, exact solutions are obtained for the purely elastic, partially plastic, and fully plastic deformation of FG cylindrical and spherical shell pressure vessels under mechanical loads. The material properties (elastic modulus and yield strength) are assumed to vary nonlinearly in the radial direction of the vessel and the Poisson's ratio is assumed to be constant due to Poisson's ratio slight variations in the engineering materials. The novelty of the current work lies in the presentation of complete exact elastoplastic solutions for FG thick cylindrical and spherical shell pressure vessels, taking into account all deformation zones. Tresca's yield criterion is used to formulate four different deformation zones for an ideal plastic material. All of these states of deformation are studied in detail. It is shown that the elastoplastic response of the FG pressure vessels is notably affected by the radial variation of the material properties. With an increase in the FG parameter beta, the first yielding position of the FG pressure vessels changes from the inner surface to the outer surface. The conclusions of this work should help with developing designs of FG pressure vessels to prevent yielding under excessive circumferential stresses.