Instability Analysis of Fluid-Conveying Functionally Graded Thin-Walled Pipes on Random Elastic Foundations

Abstract

Abstract The aims in this work are to study the effects of random variables and physical parameters on the critical fluid velocity of functionally graded material thin-walled pipes resting on random elastic foundations which carry the axial flow. The variation of the mean of the critical flow velocity with the spatial correlation length are monotonically increased or not monotonic which is conditional on the values of the coefficient of variation. The length of the intervals for purely ceramic or fully metal is shorter than these for other values of volume fraction index in which the mean of critical flow velocity is higher than that of the deterministic foundation stiffness. As the volume fraction index and temperature gradient of FGMs increase, the curves of the mean of critical flow velocity vary greatly for the fixed values of the coefficient of variation. The numerical results have been of practical interest for the design of the functionally graded pipes.