This article presents a free vibration analysis of laminated sandwich plates under various boundary conditions by using an efficient C0 eight‐node quadrilateral element. This new element is formulated based on the recently proposed layerwise model. The present model assumes an improved first‐order shear deformation theory for the face sheets while a higher‐order theory is assumed for the core maintaining an interlaminar displacement continuity. The advantage of this model relies on its number of variables is fixed, does not increase when increasing the number of lamina layers. This is a very important feature compared to the conventional layerwise models and facilitates significantly the engineering analysis. Indeed, the developed finite element is free of the shear locking phenomenon without requiring any shear correction factors. The governing equations of motion of the sandwich plate are derived via the classical Hamilton's principle. Several examples covering the various features such as the effect of modular ratio, aspect ratios, core‐to‐face thickness ratio, boundary conditions, skew angle, number of layers, geometry and ply orientations are solved for laminated composites and sandwich plates. The obtained results are compared with 3D, quasi‐3D, 2D analytical solutions, and those predicted by other advanced finite element models. The comparison studies indicate that the developed finite element model is of fast convergence to the reference and valid for both thick and thin laminated sandwich plates. Finally, it can be concluded that the present model is not only simple and accurate than the conventional ones, but also comparable with refined analytical solutions found in the literature.
In this paper, the bending behavior of functionally graded single-layered, symmetric and non-symmetric sandwich beams is investigated according to a new higher order shear deformation theory. Based on this theory, a novel parabolic shear deformation function is developed and applied to investigate the bending response of sandwich beams with homogeneous hardcore and softcore. The present theory provides an accurate parabolic distribution of transverse shear stress across the thickness and satisfies the zero traction boundary conditions on the top and bottom surfaces of the functionally graded sandwich beam without using any shear correction factors. The governing equations derived herein are solved by employing the finite element method using a two-node beam element, developed for this purpose. The material properties of functionally graded sandwich beams are graded through the thickness according to the power-law distribution. The predictive capability of the proposed finite element model is demonstrated through illustrative examples. Four types of beam support, i.e. simply-simply, clamped-free, clamped–clamped, and clamped-simply, are used to study how the beam deflection and both axial and transverse shear stresses are affected by the variation of volume fraction index and beam length-to-height ratio. Results of the numerical analysis have been reported and compared with those available in the open literature to evaluate the accuracy and robustness of the proposed finite element model. The comparisons with other higher order shear deformation theories verify that the proposed beam element is accurate, presents fast rate of convergence to the reference results and it is also valid for both thin and thick functionally graded sandwich beams. Further, some new results are reported in the current study, which will serve as a benchmark for future research.
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