DYNAMIC FORMULATION FOR GEOMETRICALLY-EXACT SANDWICH SHELLS

Extending our recent works on geometrically-exact sandwich beams and o ne-dimensional plates [see e.g. Vu-Quoc and Ebcioglu (1995); Vu-Quoc a nd Deng (1995c); Vu-Quoc and Deng (1995a)], we present here a geometri cally-exact sandwich shell theory, entirely in terms of stress resulta nts which accommodates finite deformations in membrane, bending, and t ransverse shear. The motion of the shell are referred directly to the inertial frame; the transverse fiber of the sandwich shell has a motio n identical to that of a chain of three rigid links connected by revol ute joints. An important approximated theory is developed from the gen eral nonlinear equations, the classical linear theory is recovered by the consistent linearization. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.