An analytical solution for bending, buckling and vibration responses of FGM sandwich plates

In this study, a new shear deformation plate theory is introduced to illustrate the bending, buckling and free vibration responses of functionally graded material sandwich plates. A new displacement field containing integrals is proposed which involves only four variables. Based on the suggested theory, the equations of motion are derived from Hamilton's principle. This theory involves only four unknown functions and accounts for quasi-parabolic distribution of transverse shear stress. In addition, the transverse shear stresses are vanished at the top and bottom surfaces of the sandwich plate. The Navier solution technique is adopted to derive analytical solutions for simply supported rectangular sandwich plates. The accuracy and effectiveness of proposed model are verified by comparison with previous research. A detailed numerical study is carried out to examine the influence of the critical buckling loads, deflections, stresses, natural frequencies and sandwich plate type on the bending, buckling and free vibration responses of functionally graded sandwich plates.