The elastic analysis of bending and buckling of simply supported sandwich plates with composite faces is done using the Rayleigh-Ritz method. The sandwich plate consists of an antiplane core, two unequal anisotropic laminated faces, and adhesive layers of finite bonding stiffness. The analysis takes into account all the possible coupling actions in anisotropic composite faces to examine the coupling effects on the sandwich bending and buckling behavior.
The viscoelastic analysis of the sandwich plate is carried out using the Schapery's quasi-elastic method. The viscoelastic properties of face laminate for the calculation is obtained by the use of micromechanical modeling approach.
The layup sequence of a face is selected to show all the coupling actions. The bucking loads are presented for various face layup angles, core to face thickness rations, and aspect ratios and loading conditions. The thick faced sandwich plates show different coupling effects from the thin faced ones due to the relative strength of the coupling actions.
The transverse normal stiffness and the adhesive bonding stiffness, which are usually not taken into account in classical theories, have certain levels of value beyond which rigid core assumption in thickness direction and perfect bonding assumption are reasonable.
Results of the viscoelastic bucking analysis under inplane loads are presented for various layup sequences of crossply face plates. Dependence of buckling load on face layup sequence, adhesive bonding stiffness, biaxial load ratio and plate geometry is examined, including the effect of change of buckling modes with time.
