Free vibration analysis of sandwich plates with anisotropic face sheets in thermal environment by using the hierarchical trigonometric Ritz formulation

A free vibration analysis of sandwich plates with laminated anisotropic face sheets in thermal environment is carried out by means of the hierarchical trigonometric Ritz formulation (HTRF) built in the framework of Carrera's unified formulation (CUF). CUF is presented in its generalized version allowing to produce hierarchically a wide range of advanced equivalent single layer, zig-zag and layer-wise plate theories including the capability to choose the desired expansion order for each unknown in the displacement field. The global-local free vibration response of the sandwich plates subjected to environment temperature variations is accurately described by the employed plate models accounting for through-the-thickness deformations. The effects of significant parameters such as length-to-thickness ratio, face-to-thickness ratio, number of layers and stacking sequence on the circular frequency parameters and on the modal displacements are examined.