Experimental and numerical investigation of the free vibration of composite sandwich plates with lattice cores

Due to unique properties, lattice composite structure are used extensively in aviation, marine and automotive industry. In this research, experimental and numerical investigation of the free vibration of composite sandwich plates with triangular grid has been studied. For the fabrication of this plates, silicone mold, filament winding, and hand lay-up method were used. Stiffened plates and simple plates are fabricated, separately. Then, composite sandwich plates with triangular grid were created by attaching the two parts together. The modal test is done on the plates and natural frequencies have been extracted.The comparison of numerical and experimental results showed that there is a good agreement between them. By using Taguchi method, a parametric study was performed on the vibrational behavior of sandwich plates with triangular cores via three parameters that such as stiffeners’ number, stiffener thickness and skin thickness. The results show that the natural frequency of sandwich plates with triangular grid has a most sensitive to the stiffener thickness, and least sensitive to stiffeners’ number. The sensitivity of natural frequency is almost identical to stiffener thickness and skin thickness.To evaluate the efficiency of sandwich plates with triangular grid, the natural frequency of sandwich plates are compared with simple plates in the different boundary condition. The results show that the natural frequency of sandwich plates with the triangular grid is 133% and 138% higher than an equivalent simple shell at free and clamp boundary condition, respectively.