A layerwise finite element formulation for vibration and damping analysis of sandwich plate with moderately thick viscoelastic core

Abstract

Most previous studies of viscoelastic sandwich plates were based on the assumption that damping was only resulting from shear deformation in the viscoelastic core. However, extensive and compressive deformations in the viscoelastic core should also be considered especially for sandwich plates with moderately thick viscoelastic core. This paper presents a finite element formulation for vibration and damping analysis of sandwich plates with moderately thick viscoelastic core based on a mixed layerwise theory. The face layers satisfy the Kirchhoff theory while the viscoelastic core meets a general high-order deformation theory. The viscoelastic core is modeled as a quasi-three-dimensional solid where other types of deformation such as longitudinal extension and transverse compression are also considered. To better describe the distribution of the displacement fields, auxiliary points located across the depth of the sandwich plate are introduced. And based on the auxiliary points, the longitudinal and transverse displacements of the viscoelastic core are interpolated independently by Lagrange interpolation functions. Quadrilateral finite elements are developed and dynamic equations are derived by Hamilton’s principle in the variation form. Allowing for the frequency-dependent characteristics of the viscoelastic material, an iterative procedure is introduced to solve the nonlinear eigenvalue problem. The comparison with results in the open literature validates the remarkable accuracy of the present model for sandwich plates with moderately thick viscoelastic core, and demonstrates the importance of the higher-order variation of the transverse displacement along the thickness of the viscoelastic core for the improvement of the analysis accuracy. Moreover, the influence of the thickness and stiffness ratios of the viscoelastic core to the face layers on the damping characteristics of the viscoelastic sandwich plate is discussed.