Dynamic and Thermal Buckling Behaviors of Multi-Span Honeycomb Sandwich Panel with Arbitrary Boundaries

Abstract

The dynamic characteristics and thermal buckling behaviors of a multi-span honeycomb sandwich panel with arbitrary boundaries are studied comprehensively in this paper. The concept of artificial springs is proposed and it was found that arbitrary boundaries can be achieved by adjusting the stiffness of artificial springs. The hinges which connect the base plates of this structure are simulated by massless torsion springs. The displacement field of the panel is expressed as a series of admissible functions which is a set of characteristic orthogonal polynomials generated directly by employing the Gram–Schmidt process. The stresses induced by the temperature change in the multi-span panel are considered, and then the eigenvalue equations of free vibration and thermal buckling are derived by using the Rayleigh–Ritz method. The theoretical formulations of the present research are validated by comparing the results of this paper with those obtained from the available literature and ABAQUS software. Subsequently, the influences of structural parameters on the critical buckling temperature and natural frequencies are investigated comprehensively, and some useful conclusions about dynamic optimization design for multi-span honeycomb sandwich panels are drawn from the present study.