• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.89 no.2
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• pp.103-119
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• 2024

The present research investigates the thermodynamically bending behavior of FG sandwich plates, laying on the Winkler/Pasternak/Kerr foundation with various boundary conditions, subjected to harmonic thermal load varying through thickness. The supposed FG sandwich plate has three layers with a ceramic core. The constituents' volume fractions of the lower and upper faces vary gradually in the direction of the FG sandwich plate thickness. This variation is performed according to various models: a Power law, Trigonometric, Viola-Tornabene, and the Exponential model, while the core is constantly homogeneous. The displacement field considered in the current work contains integral terms and fewer unknowns than other theories in the literature. The corresponding equations of motion are derived based on Hamilton's principle. The impact of the distribution model, scheme, aspect ratio, side-to-thickness ratio, boundary conditions, and elastic foundations on thermodynamic bending are examined in this study. The deflections obtained for the sandwich plate without elastic foundations have the lowest values for all boundary conditions. In addition, the minimum deflection values are obtained for the exponential volume fraction law model. The sandwich plate's non-dimensional deflection increases as the aspect ratio increases for all distribution models.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.41 no.6
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• pp.873-886
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• 2021

In this paper, an analytical solution for thermodynamic response of functionally graded (FG) sandwich plates resting on variable elastic foundation is performed by using a quasi 3D shear deformation plate theory. The displacement field used in the present study contains undetermined integral terms and involves only four unknown functions with including stretching effect. The FG sandwich plate is considered to be subject to a time harmonic sinusoidal temperature field across its thickness with any combined boundary conditions. Equations of motion are derived from Hamilton's principle. The numerical results are compared with the existing results of quasi-3D shear deformation theories and an excellent agreement is observed. Several numerical examples for fundamental frequency, deflection, stress and variable elastic foundation parameter's analysis of FG sandwich plates are presented and discussed considering different material gradients, layer thickness ratios, thickness-to-length ratios and boundary conditions. The results of the present study reveal that the nature of the elastic foundation, the boundary conditions and the thermodynamic loading affect the response of the FG plate especially in the case of a thick plate.

• 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.

• Advances in materials Research
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.155-177
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• 2019

In this paper, a new displacement based high-order shear deformation theory is introduced for the static response of functionally graded sandwich plate with new definition of porosity distribution taking into account composition and the scheme of the sandwich plate. Unlike any other theory, the number of unknown functions involved is only four, as against five in case of other shear deformation theories. The theory presented is variationally consistent, has strong similarity with classical plate theory in many aspects, does not require shear correction factor, and gives rise to transverse shear stress variation such that the transverse shear stresses vary parabolically across the thickness satisfying shear stress free surface conditions. Material properties of FGM layers are assumed to vary continuously across the plate thickness according to either power-law or sigmoid function in terms of the volume fractions of the constituents. The face layers are considered to be FG across each face thickness while the core is made of a ceramic homogeneous layer. Governing equations are derived from the principle of virtual displacements. The closed-form solution of a simply supported rectangular plate subjected to sinusoidal loading has been obtained by using the Navier method. Numerical results are presented to show the effect of the material distribution, the sandwich plate geometry and the porosity on the deflections and stresses of FG sandwich plates. The validity of the present theory is investigated by comparing some of the present results with other published results.

• 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.

• Advances in materials Research
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.43-65
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• 2023

Free vibration analysis of power law and sigmoidal sandwich plates made up of functionally graded materials (FGMs) has been carried out using finite element based higher-order zigzag theory. The present model satisfies all-important conditions such as transverse shear stress-free conditions at the plate's top and bottom surface along with continuity condition for transverse stresses at the interface. A Nine-noded C0 finite element having eleven degrees of freedom per node is used during the study. The present model is free from the requirement of any penalty function or post-processing technique and hence is computationally efficient. The present model's effectiveness is demonstrated by comparing the present results with available results in the literature. Several new results have been proposed in the present work, which will serve as a benchmark for future works. It has been observed that the material variation law, power-law exponent, skew angle, and boundary condition of the plate widely determines the free vibration behavior of sandwich functionally graded (FG) plate.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.389-401
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• 2017

In this work, a new higher shear deformation theory (HSDT) is developed for the free vibration and buckling of functionally graded (FG) sandwich plates. The proposed theory presents a new displacement field by using undetermined integral terms. Only four unknowns are employed in this theory, which is less than the classical first shear deformation theory (FSDT) and others HSDTs. Equations of motion are obtained via Hamilton's principle. The analytical solutions of FG sandwich plates are determined by employing the Navier method. A good agreement between the computed results and the available solutions of existing HSDTs is found to prove the accuracy of the developed theory.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.291-305
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• 2016

In this paper, a refined shear deformation plate theory which eliminates the use of a shear correction factor was presented for FG sandwich plates composed of FG face sheets and an isotropic homogeneous core. The theory accounts for parabolic distribution of the transverse shear strains and satisfies the zero traction boundary conditions on the surfaces of the plate. The mechanical properties of the plate are assumed to vary continuously in the thickness direction by a simple power-law distribution in terms of the volume fractions of the constituents. Based on the present refined shear deformation plate theory, the governing equations of equilibrium are derived from the principle of virtual displacements. Numerical illustrations concern buckling behavior of FG sandwiches plates with Metal-Ceramic composition. Parametric studies are performed for varying ceramic volume fraction, volume fraction profiles, Boundary condition, and length to thickness ratios. The accuracy of the present solutions is verified by comparing the obtained results with the existing solutions.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.43 no.5
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• pp.639-660
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• 2022

The bending and buckling behaviours of FG-GRNC laminated sandwich plates are investigated by using novel five-variables quasi 3D higher order shear deformation plate theory by considering the modified continuum nonlocal strain gradient theory. To calculate the effective Young's modulus of the GRNC sandwich plate along the thickness direction, and Poisson's ratio and mass density, the modified Halpin-Tsai model and the rule of the mixture are employed. Based on a new field of displacement, governing equilibrium equations of the GRNC sandwich plate are solved using a developed approach of Galerkin method. A detailed parametric analysis is carried out to highlight the influences of length scale and material scale parameters, GPLs distribution pattern, the weight fraction of GPLs, geometry and size of GPLs, the geometry of the sandwich plate and the total number of layers on the stresses, deformation and critical buckling loads. Some details are studied exclusively for the first time, such as stresses and the nonlocality effect.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.429-447
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• 2019

The present study analyzed free vibration of the three-layered micro annular/circular plate which its core and face sheets are made of saturated porous materials and FG-CNTRCs, respectively. The structure is subjected to magneto-electric fields and magneto-electro-mechanical pre loads. Mechanical properties of the porous core and also FG-CNTRC face sheets are varied through the thickness direction. Using dynamic Hamilton's principle, the motion equations based on MCS and FSD theories are derived and solved via GDQ as an efficient numerical method. Effect of different parameters such as pores distributions, porosity coefficient, pores compressibility, CNTs distribution, elastic foundation, multi-physical pre loads, small scale parameter and aspect ratio of the plate are investigated. The findings of this study can be useful for designing smart structures such as sensor and actuator.