On modeling of global response behavior of sandwich plates with laminated faces

The present paper investigates the influence of some non-classical effects (shear deformability of faces, warping of the cross-section, static continuity requirements at the interfaces) on deflection, natural frequencies and buckling loads of sandwich plates with laminated faces. Parametric studies are performed for different values of the face thickness/core thickness ratio and of the face transverse shear flexibility/core transverse shear flexibility ratio by using smeared laminate models and discrete-layer models. Also investigated is the effect of the unsymmetry of faces or of the sandwich plate as a whole. The numerical results show that the fulfilment of the static continuity conditions is very important, specially for the standard sandwich type construction having face layers which behave as membranes and core layer which only contributes to the plate transverse shear stiffness.