Fundamental Frequency Analysis of Sandwich Beams with Functionally Graded Face and Metallic Foam Core

This study is interested in assessing a way to analyze fundamental frequency of sandwich beams with functionally graded face sheet and homogeneous core. The face sheet, which is an exponentially graded material (EGM) varying smoothly in the thickness direction only, is composed of a mixture of metal and ceramic. The core which is made of foam metal is homogeneous. The classical plate theory (CPT) is used to analyze the face sheet and a higher-order theory (HOT) is used to analyze the core of sandwich beams, in which both the transverse normal and shear strains of the core are considered. The extended Galerkin method is used to solve the governing equations to obtain the vibration equations of the sandwich beams suitable for numerical analysis. The fundamental frequency obtained by the theoretical model is validated by using the finite element code ABAQUS and comparison with earlier works. The influences of material and geometric properties on the fundamental frequency of the sandwich beams are analyzed.