Frequency analysis of sandwich plates with temperature dependent flexible core based on the unified hybrid formulation

In this study a frequency analysis of a sandwich plate with multilayered composite face-sheets and flexible core under thermal conditions is investigated for different boundary conditions. In this regard, thermal effects and temperature dependent properties of the core are considered. In this study, for driving the equations of motion, a hybrid LW/ESL finite element formulation, considering the thermal effects is proposed by which the number of unknowns is independent on the number of layers. This new formulation is in the framework of Carrera’s Unified Formulation (CUF). The CUF unify many theories in a unified form which can be differed by the order of expansion and definition of the variables in the thickness direction. In order to satisfy the interlaminar continuity of transverse stresses between the layers the Reissner Mixed Variational Theorem (RMVT) is employed. In this research for considering the thermal effects, the nonlinear strains are used. Results of this formulation are compared with available results which show the high accuracy with low computational cost of the proposed formulation. Results show that with increasing the temperature, the frequency of structure decreases significantly, due to the degradation of the properties of the core. In this study, some new results are presented for different thermal conditions and also different boundary conditions.