Investigating the Response Variability of Statically Determined Sandwich Beams considering two Random Fields of Elastic Modulus

Abstract

In this paper, the displacement variation in sandwich beams is determined by employing a semi-analytical approach. The classical displacement is calculated by integration using Mohr’s equation, although the integration is complicated due to the inclusion of random fields in the inertial moment term. Using the trapezoidal rule to compute these integrals, the random fields are discretized into random variables at the nodal point of the beam segments. Thus, the expected displacement, standard deviation, and coefficient of variation can be computed. To validate the results, the random fields are simulated using a previously described spectral method. The results of numerical examples were compared with the semi-analytical method and the Monte Carlo simulation demonstrating the high accuracy of the proposed method. The results also illustrate the influence of the parameters of the random fields of elastic modulus on the variability of displacement.