• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.363-376
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• 2001

Sandwich plates are widely used in lightweight design due to their high strength and stiffness to weight ratio. Due to the heterogeneous structure of sandwich plates, they can exhibit local instabilities (wrinkling), which lead to a sudden loss of stiffness in the structure. This paper presents an analytical solution to the wrinkling problem of sandwich plates. The solution is based on the Rayleigh-Ritz method, by assuming an appropriate deformation field. In contrast to the other approaches up to now, this model takes arbitrary and different orthotropic face layers, finite core thickness and orthotropic core material into account. This approach is the first to cover the wrinkling of unsymmetric sandwiches and sandwiches composed of orthotropic FRP face layers, which are most common in advanced lightweight design. Despite the generality of the solution, the computational effort is kept within bounds. The results have been verified using other analytical solutions and unit cell 3D FE calculations.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.65 no.4
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• pp.491-504
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• 2018

Because of sandwich structures with low weight and high stiffness have much usage in various industries such as civil and aerospace engineering, in this article, buckling and free vibration analyses of coupled micro composite sandwich plates are investigated based on sinusoidal shear deformation (SSDT) and most general strain gradient theories (MGSGT). It is assumed that the sandwich structure rested on an orthotropic elastic foundation and make of four composite face sheets with temperature-dependent material properties that they reinforced by carbon and boron nitride nanotubes and two flexible transversely orthotropic cores. Mathematical formulation is presented using Hamilton's principle and governing equations of motions are derived based on energy approach and applying variation method for simply supported edges under electro-magneto-thermo-mechanical, axial buckling and pre-stresses loadings. In order to predict the effects of various parameters such as material length scale parameter, length to width ratio, length to thickness ratio, thickness of face sheets to core thickness ratio, nanotubes volume fraction, pre-stress load and orthotropic elastic medium on the natural frequencies and critical buckling load of double-bonded micro composite sandwich plates. It is found that orthotropic elastic medium has a special role on the system stability and increasing Winkler and Pasternak constants lead to enhance the natural frequency and critical buckling load of micro plates, while decrease natural frequency and critical buckling load with increasing temperature changes. Also, it is showed that pre-stresses due to help the axial buckling load causes that delay the buckling phenomenon. Moreover, it is concluded that the sandwich structures with orthotropic cores have high stiffness, but because they are not economical, thus it is necessary the sandwich plates reinforce by carbon or boron nitride nanotubes specially, because these nanotubes have important thermal and mechanical properties in comparison of the other reinforcement.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.387-405
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• 2018

A novel higher shear deformation theory (HSDT) is proposed for the bending, buckling and free vibration investigations of isotropic and functionally graded (FG) sandwich plates. It contains only four variables, which is even less than the first shear deformation theory (FSDT) and the conventional HSDTs. The model accounts for a parabolic variation of transverse shear stress, respects the traction free boundary conditions and contrary to the conventional HSDTs, the present one presents a novel displacement field which incorporates undetermined integral terms. Equations of motion determined in this work are applied for three types of FG structures: FG plates, sandwich plates with FG core and sandwich plates with FG faces. Analytical solutions are given to predict the transverse displacements, stresses, critical buckling forces and natural frequencies of simply supported plates and a comparison study is carried out to demonstrate the accuracy of the proposed model.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.649-662
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• 2018

In this study, based on the three-dimensional theory of elasticity, free vibration characteristics of sandwich sectorial plates with multiwalled carbon nanotube-(MWCNT)-reinforced composite core are considered. Modified Halpin-Tsai equation is used to evaluate the Young's modulus of the MWCNT/epoxy composite samples by the incorporation of an orientation as well as an exponential shape factor in the equation. The exponential shape factor modifies the Halpin-Tsai equation from expressing a straight line to a nonlinear one in the MWCNTs wt% range considered. In this paper, free vibration of thick functionally graded sandwich annular sectorial plates with simply supported radial edges and different circular edge conditions including simply supported-clamped, clamped-clamped, and free-clamped is investigated. A semi-analytical approach composed of two-dimensional differential quadrature method and series solution are adopted to solve the equations of motion. The material properties change continuously through the core thickness of the plate, which can vary according to a power-law, exponentially, or any other formulations in this direction. This study serves as a benchmark for assessing the validity of numerical methods or two-dimensional theories used to analysis of laminated sectorial plates.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.541-557
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• 2018

This paper presents the influence of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) waviness and aspect ratio on the vibrational behavior of functionally graded nanocomposite sandwich annular sector plates resting on two-parameter elastic foundations. The carbon nanotube-reinforced (CNTR) sandwich plate has smooth variation of CNT fraction along the thickness direction. The distributions of CNTs are considered functionally graded (FG) or uniform along the thickness and their mechanical properties are estimated by an extended rule of mixture. In this study, the classical theory concerning the mechanical efficiency of a matrix embedding finite length fibers has been modified by introducing the tube-to-tube random contact, which explicitly accounts for the progressive reduction of the tubes' effective aspect ratio as the filler content increases. Effects of CNT distribution, volume fraction, aspect ratio and waviness, and also effects of Pasternak's elastic foundation coefficients, sandwich plate thickness, face sheets thickness and plate aspect ratio are investigated on the free vibration of the sandwich plates with wavy CNT-reinforced face sheets. The study is carried out based on three-dimensional theory of elasticity and in contrary to two-dimensional theories, such as classical, the first- and the higher-order shear deformation plate theories, this approach does not neglect transverse normal deformations. The sandwich annular sector plate is assumed to be simply supported in the radial edges while any arbitrary boundary conditions are applied to the other two circular edges including simply supported, clamped and free.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.92-99
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• 1998

The sound insulation capacity of honeycomb sandwich plates which have relatively higher strength ratios to weight is poorer than those of uniform and another sandwich plates. Therefore, improvement of the sound insulation capacity of the honeycomb sandwich plate which has a meritof lightness is required to use it in automobile and rapid rail road industries. In this study, to improving the sound insulation capacity of the honeycomb sandwich plate, the sound transmission loss of the structure is experimentally investigated by adding a viscoelastic damping layer, The effective add position and thickness of the layer were investigated from the viewpoints of both sound transmission loss and improved sound transmission loss over the frequency range from 800Hz to 10kHz.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.77 no.6
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• pp.797-807
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• 2021

A new simple solution for critical buckling of FG sandwich plates under axial and biaxial loads is presented using new modified power-law formulations. Both even and uneven distributions of porosity are taken into account in this study. Material properties of the sandwich plate faces are assumed to be graded in the thickness direction according to a modified power-law distribution in terms of the volume fractions of the constituents. Equilibrium and stability equations of FG sandwich plate with various boundary conditions are derived using the higher-order shear deformation plate theory. The results reveal that the distribution shape of the porosity, the gradient index, loading type and functionally graded layers thickness have significant influence on the buckling response of functionally graded sandwich plates.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.88 no.6
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• pp.551-567
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• 2023

In this work, the free vibration analysis of functionally graded material (FGM) sandwich plates with porosity is conducted using the p-version of the finite element method (FEM), which is based on the first-order shear deformation theory (FSDT). The sandwich plate consists of two face-sheet layers of FGM and a homogeneous core layer. The obtained results are validated using convergence and comparison studies with previously published results. Five porosities distribution models of FGM sandwich plates are assumed and analyzed. The effect of the thickness ratio, boundary conditions, volume fraction exponents, and porosity coefficients of the top and bottom layers of FGM sandwich plates on the natural frequency are addressed.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.87-102
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• 1993

A $C^{\circ}$ continuous finite element formulation of a higher order displacement theory is presented for predicting linear and geometrically non-linear in the sense of von Karman transient responses of composite and sandwich plates. The displacement model accounts for non-linear cubic variation of tangential displacement components through the thickness of the laminate and the theory requires no shear correction coefficients. In the time domain, the explicit central difference integrator is used in conjunction with the special mass matrix diagonalization scheme which conserves the total mass of the element and included effects due to rotary inertia terms. The parametric effects of the time step, finite element mesh, lamination scheme and orthotropy on the linear and geometrically non-linear responses are investigated. Numerical results for central transverse deflection, stresses and stress resultants are presented for square/rectangular composite and sandwich plates under various boundary conditions and loadings and these are compared with the results from other sources. Some new results are also tabulated for future reference.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.251-261
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• 2017

In this paper, thermal effect on the vibration and stability of initially stressed sandwich plates with functionally graded material (FGM) face sheets is analyzed. Material properties of FGM face sheet are graded continuously in the thickness direction. The variation of FGM properties assumes a simple power law distribution in terms of the volume fractions of the constituents. The governing equations of arbitrarily initially-stressed sandwich plates including the effects of transverse shear deformation and rotary inertia are derived. The initial stress is taken to be a combination of a uniaxial extensional stress and a pure bending stress in the examples. The eigenvalue problems are formed to study the vibration and buckling characteristics of simple supported initially stressed FGM/metal/FGM plates. The effects of volume fraction index, temperature rise, initial stress and layer thickness of metal on the natural frequencies and buckling loads are investigated. The results reveal that the volume fraction index, initial stresses and layer thickness of metal have significant influence on the vibration and stability of sandwich plates with FGM face sheets.