On the buckling of advanced composite sandwich rectangular plates

In this paper, higher order closed-formed analytical solutions for the buckling analysis of functionally graded sandwich rectangular plates are obtained using a unified shear deformation theory. Three-layered sandwich plates with functionally graded skins on top and bottom; and isotropic core in the middle are considered for the study. The material properties of skins are varied through the thickness according to the power-law distribution. Two types of sandwich plates (hardcore and softcore) are considered for the detail numerical study. A unified shear deformation theory developed in the present study uses polynomial and non-polynomial-type shape functions in terms of thickness coordinate to account for the effect of shear deformation. In the present theory, the in-plane displacements consider the combined effect of bending rotation and shear rotation. The parabolic shear deformation theory of Reddy and the first-order shear deformation theory of Mindlin are the particular cases of the present unified formulation. The governing differential equations are evaluated from the principle of virtual work. Closed-formed analytical solutions are obtained by using the Navier’s technique. The non-dimensional critical buckling load factors are obtained for various power-law coefficients, aspect ratios and skin-core-skin thickness ratios.