Studies on static and dynamic characteristics of light weight structural sandwich panels

Abstract

Analytical studies on static and dynamic behaviour of light weight newlinestructural sandwich panels which are largely used in marine, aerospace, newlinetransport, mechanical/civil engineering applications are presented. This light newlineweight thin-walled structures are sensitive to small disturbances and can vibrate newlinevigorously. So, this work is mainly focused to enhance the static and dynamic newlinebehaviour of sandwich panels by exploring different face sheets and core newlinematerials. Recently, the studies related to carbon based polymer nanocomposite newlineare of greater interest because of their good thermal, electric, magnetic, and newlinestructural properties. The sandwich panels analyzed in this work are a) truss newlinecore filled with polyurethane foam b) functionally graded carbon nanotube newlinereinforced polymer composite faces with 3D graphene foam core c) functionally newlinegraded carbon nanotube reinforced polymer composite faces with honeycomb newlinecore. In addition, when these panels are exposed to thermal environment, the newlinedynamic behaviour is highly influenced due to the thermal stresses induced in newlinethis structure. So, the face sheets with FG-CNT reinforced polymer composite newlinesandwich panels with honeycomb core is studied under different thermal fields. newlineIn this work, the dynamic behaviour of structure is analysed by studying its free newlineand forced vibration characteristics. Initially various core topology of truss core sandwich panels like cellular, trapezoidal and triangular core sandwich constructions are filled with polyurethane foam to investigate its free and forced vibration characteristics. Here, governing equation of motion is developed using first order shear deformation theory. From this analysis, it is found that effect of foam filling significantly reduces the vibration amplitude for all types of truss core sandwich panels. newline newline