Benchmark Solution for Free Vibration of Moderately Thick Functionally Graded Sandwich Sector Plates on Two-Parameter Elastic Foundation with General Boundary Conditions

Abstract

The free vibration analysis of moderately thick functionally graded (FG) sector plates resting on two-parameter elastic foundation with general boundary conditions is presented via Fourier-Ritz method, which is composed of the modified Fourier series approach and the Ritz procedure. The material properties are assumed to vary continuously along the thickness according to the power-law distribution. The bilayered and single-layered functionally graded sector plates are obtained as the special cases of sandwich plates. The first-order shear deformation theory (FSDT) is adopted to construct the theoretical model. Under current framework, regardless of boundary conditions, each displacement and each rotation of plates is represented by the modified Fourier series consisting of a standard Fourier cosine series and several closed-form auxiliary functions introduced to ensure and accelerate the convergence of the series representation. Then, the accurate solutions are obtained by using the Ritz procedure based on the energy function of sector plates. The present method shows good convergence, reliability, and accuracy by comprehensive investigation with some selected classical boundary conditions. Numerous new vibration results for moderately thick FG sandwich sector plates are provided. The effects of the elastic restraint parameters and so forth on free vibration characteristic of sector plates are presented.