This paper investigates the nonlinear local bending of a sandwich plate consisting of
two composite laminated face sheets and a graded core subjected to a lateral patch
load. It is assumed that the material composition of the graded layer varies
symmetrically along the thickness direction according to a power law distribution.
The present analysis is based on the first order shear deformation plate theory and
von Karman nonlinear kinematics, with the interaction between the loaded face
sheet and the graded core being modeled as an elastic plate resting on a
Vlasov-type elastic foundation. A perturbation technique and Galerkin method are
used to determine the nonlinear local bending response. Numerical results
show that compared with conventional sandwich plates with a homogeneous
soft core, the use of a functionally graded core can effectively reduce both
the local deformation and interfacial shear stresses. A parametric study
is performed to show the influences of the volume fraction index, Young’s
modulus ratio, thickness of the graded core, boundary condition, and load
position.
Keywords
local bending, sandwich struction, functionally graded
materials, nonlinear behavior, laminates