Static Analysis of Cylindrical Sandwich Panels with a Flexible Core and Laminated Composite Face Sheets

In this study, static response of cylindrical sandwich panels with flexible core based on the high-order theory (HOT) of sandwich structures is investigated. A layerwise formulation is developed to study the applicability of HOT. The face sheets are considered as composite laminates with cross-ply layup that follow first-order shear deformation assumption and the core is considered as a linear elastic medium with out-of-plane stresses only. The field equations along with the boundary conditions are derived by means of the principle of minimum potential energy. A closed-form solution is developed for simply supported boundary conditions and a comparison is made with results from the commercial finite element software ANSYS to verify high-order and layerwise solution results. Finally, influence of parameters including the core to face sheets stiffness ratio and the core to face sheets thickness ratio on the applicability of HOT is investigated. Results demonstrate a good agreement between high-order and layerwise results for the small thickness ratio of the core to the face sheet and low stiffness cores.