Three-dimensional vibration analysis of functionally graded material sandwich plates

Free vibration of functionally graded material sandwich rectangular plates with simply supported and clamped edges is studied based on the three-dimensional linear theory of elasticity. Two common types of FGM sandwich plates, namely, the sandwich with FGM facesheet and homogeneous core and the sandwich with homogeneous facesheet and FGM core, are considered. The three displacements of the plates are expanded by a series of Chebyshev polynomials multiplied by appropriate functions to satisfy the essential boundary conditions. The natural frequencies are obtained by Ritz method. Rapid convergence is observed in this study. The natural frequencies of simply supported power-law FGM sandwich plates are compared with results from different two-dimensional plate theories. Parametric study is performed for varying volume fraction, layer thickness ratios, thickness-length ratios and aspect ratios of the sandwich plates. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.