Vibration analysis of a thin functionally graded plate having an out of plane material inhomogeneity resting on Winkler–Pasternak foundation under different combinations of boundary conditions

In the present research article, classical plate theory has been adopted to analyze functionally graded material plate, having out of plane material inhomogeneity, resting on Winkler–Pasternak foundation under different combinations of boundary conditions. The material properties of the functionally graded material plate vary according to power law in the thickness direction. Rayleigh–Ritz method in conjugation with polynomial displacement functions has been used to develop a computationally efficient mathematical model to study free vibration characteristics of the plate. Convergence of frequency parameters (nondimensional natural frequencies) has been attained by increasing the number of polynomials of displacement function. The frequency parameters of the functionally graded material plate obtained by proposed method are compared with the open literature to validate the present model. Firstly, the present model is used to calculate first six natural frequencies of the functionally graded plate under all possible combinations of boundary conditions for the constant value of stiffness of Winkler and Pasternak foundation moduli. Further, the effects of density, aspect ratio, power law exponent, Young’s modulus on frequency parameters of the functionally graded plate resting on Winkler–Pasternak foundation under specific boundary conditions viz. CCCC (all edges clamped), SSSS (all edges simply supported), CFFF (cantilever), SCSF (simply supported-clamped-free) are studied extensively. Furthermore, effect of stiffness of elastic foundation moduli (kp and kw) on frequency parameters are analyzed. It has been observed that effects of aspect ratios, boundary conditions, Young’s modulus and density on frequency parameters are significant at lower value of the power law exponent. It has also been noted from present investigation that Pasternak foundation modulus has greater effect on frequency parameters as compared to the Winkler foundation modulus. Most of the results presented in this paper are novel and may be used for the validation purpose by researchers. Three dimensional mode shapes for the functionally graded plate resting on elastic foundation have also been presented in this article