Free Vibration Analysis of Laminated Sandwich Plates Using Wavelet Finite Element Method

Abstract

The accuracy of a wavelet depends on the choice of the mother wavelet adopted. The present work aims to predict the free vibration behavior of laminated sandwich plates using wavelet finite element (WFE). Different kinds of mother wavelets, namely, B-spline wavelet on the interval (BSWI), Gaussian, Haar, Daubechies 6 (db6), Biorthogonal 3.7 (bior3.7), Coiflet5 (coif5), Symlets (sym8), Morlet, Mexican hat (Mh), and Meyer mother wavelets, are employed in WFE for predicting the frequencies. Both symmetric and unsymmetric laminates are studied using the proposed approaches. A wide range of problems, including the influence of the geometric and material properties and end conditions on the free vibration behavior of the laminated sandwich plates, are solved. The effectiveness of the WFE over the conventional finite element method in terms of computational efficiency is discussed. In conclusion, BSWI-based WFE method (WFEM) is found to be the most accurate and computationally efficient in predicting the free vibration behavior of laminated sandwich plates. The accuracy of the WFEM depends widely on the type of mother wavelet adopted.