Parviz Malekzadeh

The thermoelastic wave in multilayered spherical shells with functionally graded (FG) layers under thermal boundary conditions is studied. The Lord–Shulman generalized coupled thermoelasticity theory is applied to illustrate the effect of finite heat wave speed. The material properties are assumed to be temperature dependent, and consequently, the governing equations become nonlinear ones. The layerwise-differential quadrature method together with Newmark time integration scheme and Newton–Raphson method are employed to solve the governing equations. The fast rate of convergence of the method is illustrated, and its accuracy is assessed by comparing the results with various existing solutions in the open literature wherever possible. Afterward, the effects of different parameters and also the temperature dependence of material properties on the transient thermoelastic responses of the FG spherical shells are studied and discussed. It is found that the temperature dependence of material properties, thermo-mechanical coupling, thickness-to-outer radius ratio and FG layer layout significantly affect the thermo-mechanical behavior of the FG shells.