Vibration and Buckling Analyses of Sandwich Plates Containing Functionally Graded Metal Foam Core

In the present work,free vibration and buckling analyses of sandwich plates with various functionally graded foam cores are carried out.Foam cores are assumed to be made of metal,and three different configurations of the porous distribution in the core layer are taken into consideration.To carry out a comparative study between the distributions of pores in the core foam,the mass of foam in all three cases is kept the same.The vibration and buckling behaviors of skew plates are also analyzed as a part of the current investigation.The principle of minimization of potential energy and Hamilton’s principle are used for the derivation of the governing equations,while a C-0 finite element-based higher-order zigzag formulation is developed to solve the free vibration and buckling problems.The influences of gradation laws,boundary conditions,skew angle and geometry of plates are studied in detail for the dynamic and stability characteristics.It is found that both the non-dimensional natural frequency and buckling load decrease with the increase in the thickness of the metal foam cores,while they show an increasing trend as the skew angle of the plate increases.