Study on bending of hard core sandwich plates based on Reissner’s sandwich theory

Abstract

In the traditional theories of sandwich plates the core is soft so the in-plane stress components and bending stiffness are neglected. This paper explores the bending problem of hard core sandwich plates based on the revised Reissner's hypothesis. The basic equations and boundary conditions expressed with three generalized displacements are established and simplified according to the principle of minimum potential energy. In addition this paper presents the finite element model for the bending problem of hard core sandwich plates. Based on this model a four-node quadrilateral isoparametric element is constructed, the element stiffness matrix and equivalent nodal load vector are derived. It is built the solid model for ANSYS. According to the numerical analysis the finite element solutions converge to the analytical solutions with sufficient accuracy and also consistent with solutions of ANSYS.