Thermoelastic analysis of functionally graded sandwich plates with a homogeneous core

This paper is concerned with the thermoelastic analysis of functionally graded (FG) sandwich plates with a homogeneous core by a numerical method. The core layer is homogeneous ceramic while two facesheets are inhomogeneous metal-ceramic FGMs having the power-law volume fractions. The metal-ceramic FG sandwich plates are characterized by the relative thicknesses of three layers, the width-thickness and aspect ratios of plate, and the volume fractions of metal and ceramic. Meanwhile, the problem is formulated using the hierarchical models exhibiting the spectral model accuracy and implemented by 2-D natural element method (NEM). The hierarchical models are based upon the 3-D elasticity and NEM is applied to the mid-surface of plate to approximate the triple-vectored in-plane displacement field. The accuracy of hierarchical models are examined with respect to the model order, from which the (3, 3, 4) hierarchical model is chosen for the thermoelastic analysis. The thermoelastic responses obtained by the present method are compared with the existing analytic solutions, and those are parametrically investigated with respect to the above-mentioned design parameters. It is found that the present method shows a reasonable accuracy and the thermoelastic responses of FG sandwich plates are remarkably influenced by the design parameters.