An axisymmetric elastic analysis for circular sandwich panels with functionally graded cores

This paper presents an analytical solution in the framework of the elasticity theory, which is useful in describing the elastic bending response of axisymmetric circular sandwich panels with functionally graded material cores and homogeneous face-sheets. The Young’s modulus of the core is assumed to be exponentially dependant on the transverse direction and the Poisson’s ratio as well as uniform and equal to the face-sheets ratio. The elastic solution is obtained using a Plevako representation, which reduces the problem to the search of potential functions satisfying linear fourth-order partial differential equations. We explicitly obtain the analytical solution by writing the potential functions as Fourier Bessel expansions with respect to the radial coordinate. A comparative study of functionally graded versus a homogeneous sandwich core is presented by considering the first term of the expansion as the loading condition. In this way, the solution is written in a closed form and furnishes a benchmark to accurately investigate the agreement with the structural theory results.