The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of material inhomogeneity on thick
cylinders under rotation with uniform internal and external pressure. The work is motivated by
the recent research activity on functionally graded materials (FGMs), i.e., materials with
spatially varying properties tailored to satisfy particular engineering applications. In this report,
the elastic analysis for a thick cylinder made of isotropic material and thick cylinders made of
FGMs is carried out using Finite-Element Method (FEM). The property of FGMs is assumed
to be of exponential function form with Young’s modulus depending on the radial coordinate
only, and constant Poisson’s ratio. It is shown that the stress response of the inhomogeneous
cylinder is significantly different from that of the homogeneous cylinder. Stress distributions
along the radial and circumferential directions are studied, assuming the stress in axial direction
to be zero. Results shows that the property of FGMs has a significant influence on the stress
distributions – reducing the overall radial stress and completely changing the distribution of
circumferential stress as compared to the stress distributions in an isotropic cylinder under same
load. Thus, using the exclusively designed functionally graded materials for manufacturing of
parts can increase their pressure handling capacity and improve their functionality.
Keywords: thick cylinder, isotropic material, functionally graded materials, analytical
modelling, finite element analysis.
