A novel economical analytical method for bending and stress analysis of functionally graded sandwich circular plates with general elastic edge conditions, subjected to various loads

In this study a novel economical analytical approach is presented for static analysis of sandwich circular plates based on a layerwise theory linked with three-dimensional theory of elasticity. Each layer of the sandwich plate may be made of functionally graded materials, the boundary condition may be elastically restrained, and the sandwich plate may be subjected to non-uniform normal and/or shear tractions. As first time, elastically restrained edge sandwich plates are investigated and two types of translational and rotational restraints are used for modeling of general boundary conditions: I) by using in-plane translational springs at the mid plane of the core, rotational springs at the mid plane of each layer and transverse translational springs II) by using a distributed in-plane translational springs along the thickness direction of the edge and transverse translational springs. The proposed analytical method enables to obtain the in-plane and transverse displacements and stresses components. Transverse shear and normal stresses boundary conditions on the top and bottom of the sandwich plate and continuity conditions at the interfaces between layers are exactly satisfied. The efficiency of the proposed approach is demonstrated by comparison of the obtained results for classical edge conditions with those extracted from the ABAQUS software based on the 3D-elasticity.