Experimental and Numerical Investigation on Vibration of Sandwich Plates with Honeycomb Cores Based on Radial Basis Function

The vibration characteristic of the sandwich plate with a honeycomb core was investigated by experimental measurements and numerical calculation based on radial basis function (RBF). RBF method was used not only in the meshless approach but also in the post-processing of the experimental data. During the experiment, amplitude-fluctuation electronic speckle pattern interferometry was applied to access the resonant frequencies and the corresponding vibration mode shapes simultaneously. Then RBF method was used to improve the quality of patterns and reconstruct the out-of-plane vibration amplitude after fringe analysis. As for numerical calculation, the modal parameters were numerically predicted using the first-order shear deformation theory. The computation approach was based on collocation with multi-quadric radial basis function. To understand the influence of the thickness of face sheet on dynamic behaviors, three types of specimens with different thickness were tested and analyzed. Of particular interest was that the vibration modes show veering due to the thickness increment. Furthermore, the numerical predicted results were compared with the experimental measurements for the first five modes. They are in good agreement with each other for resonant frequencies, mode shapes and relative out-of-plane amplitudes.