DYNAMICS OF GEOMETRICALLY-EXACT SANDWICH BEAMS 1-D PLATES - COMPUTATIONAL ASPECTS

A Galerkin projection of the complete equations of motion of geometric ally-exact sandwich beams applicable to I-D plates is presented here. The beam can take any arbitrary initial position in the 2-D space. Eac h layer of the beam can have different material constants with no rest riction on the mass distribution and layer thickness; further, each la yer can take on different length, thus allowing the modeling of multil ayer structures with ply drop-offs. Finite rotation and shear deformat ion are accommodated for in each layer. The deformed cross section of the beam is continuous, piecewise linear. The continuity of displaceme nt across the interlayer boundaries is exactly enforced. Extensive num erical examples including sandwich beams with three identical layers, sandwich structures with ply drop-off, free flying and spin-up maneuve r of sandwich beams are presented to illustrate the applicability and versatility of the proposed formulation.