A comprehensive analysis of functionally graded sandwich plates: Part 2-Buckling and free vibration

The sinusoidal shear deformation plate theory, presented in the first part of this paper, is used to study the buckling and free vibration of the simply supported functionally graded sandwich plate. Effects of rotatory inertia are considered. The critical buckling load and the vibration natural frequency are investigated. Some available results for sandwich plates non-symmetric about the mid-plane can be retrieved from the present analysis. The influences of the transverse shear deformation, plate aspect ratio, side-to-thickness ratio and volume fraction distributions are studied. In addition, the effect of the core thickness, relative to the total thickness of the plate, on the critical buckling load and the eigenfrequencies is investigated. © 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.