A general nonlinear theory of sandwich panels

Abstract

The present work can be considered as an extension to sandwich panels of the moderately large deflection theory of plates formulated by the author in [1, 2] and as a refinement of the contributions to the theory of sandwich panels by Eringen in [3] and by Yu in [4, 5]. Variational integrals of the stress equations of motion and boundary conditions (23) consistent with the simplified nonlinear strain-displacement relations (1) are obtained from the Hamilton principle. Each layer of the sandwich panel is of different thickness and of a different anisotropic material having one plane of elastic symmetry. Transverse shear and transverse normal strain as well as the inertia and thermal effects are included in the analysis. Four special cases of practical importance are considered. Finally the equilibrium equations in terms of displacement functions are obtained and compared with the equilibrium equations obtained by Eringen in [3].