New enhanced higher order free vibration analysis of thick truncated conical sandwich shells with flexible cores

This paper dealt the free vibration analysis of thick truncated conical composite sandwich shells with transversely flexible cores and simply supported boundary conditions based on a new improved and enhanced higher order sandwich shell theory. Geometries were used in the present work for the consideration of different radii curvatures of the face sheets and the core was unique. The coupled governing partial differential equations were derived by the Hamilton's principle. The in-plane circumferential and axial stresses of the core were considered in the new enhanced model. The first order shear deformation theory was used for the inner and outer composite face sheets and for the core, a polynomial description of the displacement fields was assumed based on the second Frostig's model. The effects of types of boundary conditions, conical angles, length to radius ratio, core to shell thickness ratio and core radius to shell thickness ratio on the free vibration analysis of truncated conical composite sandwich shells were also studied. Numerical results are presented and compared with the latest results found in literature. Also, the results were validated with those derived by ABAQUS FE code.