  In this paper, a cell based smoothed finite element method with discrete
shear gap technique is employed to study the static bending, free vibration,
mechanical and thermal buckling behaviour of functionally graded material (FGM)
plates. The plate kinematics is based on the first order shear deformation
theory and the shear locking is suppressed by a discrete shear gap method. The
shear correction factors are evaluated by employing the energy equivalence
principle. The material property is assumed to be temperature dependent and
graded only in the thickness direction. The effective properties are computed
by using the Mori-Tanaka homogenization method. The accuracy of the present
formulation is validated against available solutions. A systematic parametric
study is carried out to examine the influence the gradient index, the plate
aspect ratio, skewness of the plate and the boundary conditions on the global
response of the FGM plates. The effect of a centrally located circular cutout
on the global response is also studied.
