Bending analysis of FG viscoelastic sandwich beams with elastic cores resting on Pasternak’s elastic foundations

The investigation of bending response of a simply supported functionally graded (FG) viscoelastic sandwich beam with elastic core resting on Pasternak’s elastic foundations is presented. The faces of the sandwich beam are made of FG viscoelastic material while the core is still elastic. Material properties are graded from the elastic interfaces through the viscoelastic faces of the beam. The elastic parameters of the faces are considered to be varying according to a power-law distribution in terms of the volume fraction of the constituent. The interaction between the beam and the foundations is included in the formulation. Numerical results for deflections and stresses obtained using the refined sinusoidal shear deformation beam theory are compared with those obtained using the simple sinusoidal shear deformation beam theory, higher- and first-order shear deformation beam theories. The effects due to material distribution, span-to-thickness ratio, foundation stiffness and time parameter on the deflection and stresses are investigated.