Elasto-Plastic Analysis of Cylindrical Vessel with Arbitrary Material Gradation Subjected to Thermo-Mechanical Loading Via DTM

For the first time, the response of the functionally graded (FG) hollow cylinder vessel with arbitrary material gradation in radial direction subjected to thermo-mechanical loads is investigated by employing differential transformation method (DTM). The coordinate transformation and proper scale factor are applied to eliminate redundant terms in DTM; as a result, fast convergence with less computational effort is observed. The elasticity modulus, thermal expansion coefficient, thermal conductivity and yield stress are assumed to be arbitrary functions of radius. The thick-walled FG reservoir is in steady-state condition, and strain hardening in plastic zone is neglected by using elastic–perfectly plastic behavior assumptions. The incompressible plastic deformation and plane-strain condition are considered to obtain radial displacement in the plastic zones. The effects of various parameters on commencement and propagation of possible plastic zones, yield pressure and yield temperature gradient are investigated. The analytical solutions for FG cylindrical container with conventional power law gradation are presented. In the case of arbitrary material gradation, the validity of the numerical procedure is proved by observing convergence and good agreement between results of DTM and results of finite element software Abaqus.