ABSTRACT
Objects under consideration are thin linearelastic shallow shells with constant thickness h, made of two materials and having macroscopic (averaged) properties continuously varying along the x1-and the x2-axis. However, it is assumed that these shells have toleranceperiodic microstructure along only one direction – parallel to the x1-axis. A fragment of such shell is shown in Figure 1. It can be observed that in the microstructure of these shells we can distinguish small elements, which can be called cells, although they are not repeated as in periodic structures. It is assumed that the length of these cells along the x1-axis is described by a slowly-varying function of x1, denoted by λ= λ(x1) and called the microstructure parameter. Moreover, we assume that the parameter λ is of an order of the shell thickness h. Shells under consideration are referred to as functionally graded shells (or FG-type shells). Obviously, the FG-type shells stand a special case of structures made of functionally graded materials, FGM, cf. Suresh & Mortensen (1998).
