Vibration characteristic of laminated sandwich plates with soft core based on an improved higher-order zigzag theory

Abstract

This paper presents an improved higher order zigzag theory for vibration of laminated sandwich plates. It ensures continuity of transverse shear stresses at all the layer interfaces and transverse shear stress-free condition at the top and bottom surfaces apart from core compressibility. The through-thickness variation of in-plane displacements is assumed to be cubic, whereas transverse displacement varies quadratically across the core, which is modelled as a three-dimensional elastic continuum. An efficient C0 finite element is developed for the implementation of the plate theory. The model is validated using three-dimensional elasticity solutions and some other relevant results available in the literature.