Bending analysis of laminated composite and sandwich beams according to refined trigonometric beam theory

Abstract

AbstractA trigonometric beam theory (TBT) is developed for the bending analysis of laminated composite and sandwich beams considering the effect of transverse shear deformation. The axial displacement field uses trigonometric function in terms of thickness coordinate to include the effect of transverse shear deformation. The transverse displacement is considered as a sum of two partial displacements, the displacement due to bending and the displacement due to transverse shearing. Governing equations and boundary conditions are obtained by using the principle of virtual work. To demonstrate the validity of present theory it is applied to the bending analysis of laminated composite and sandwich beams. The numerical results of displacements and stresses obtained by using present theory are presented and compared with those of other trigonometric theories available in literature along with elasticity solution wherever possible.