Bending of Sandwich Plates of Variable Thickness

Abstract

A small deflection theory, consisting of differential equations and a total potential energy expression, is presented for determining the stresses and deformations in variable thickness elastic sandwich plates symmetric about a middle surface. The theory takes into account the contribution of the face-sheet membrane forces (by virtue of their slopes) to the transverse shear. A finite-difference formulation of the stationary total potential energy principle is presented along with an illustrative application.