Natural Frequency Analysis of Rectangular Laminated Sandwichs Plates Using 2D Layerwise FE Model

Abstract

The natural frequency analysis of rectangular laminated sandwichs plates has been investigated, using a new higher-order layerwise finite element formulation. A first-order displacement field is assumed for the face sheets, whereas a higher-order displacement field is assumed for the core. Unlike the conventional layerwise models, the number of variables in the present model is fixed and does not increase when increasing the number of lamina layers. This helps to reduce the computational cost of the analysis. The performance and reliability of the proposed formulation are demonstrated by comparing the author’s results with those obtained using the three-dimensional elasticity theory, analytical solutions and other advanced finite element models. From the obtained results, it was shown that the proposed finite element model provided a better prediction on the natural frequency a rectangular laminated sandwichs plates.