Nonlinear bending of sandwich beams made of FG-GPLRC faces and FGP core using different micromechanical models for approximating material properties

Abstract

This study aims to apply various micromechanical models for predicting effective material properties of sandwich beams built from high-strength materials of faces reinforced by graphene platelets (GPLs) and high-flexural core of porous materials. GPLs content at the faces and pores at the core are varied in form of functionally graded materials with various patterns of distribution. When the material properties of the sandwich beams are successfully defined, they are brought to evaluate their structural performance in terms of bending resistances under various kinds of transverse distributed loads. Generalized beam theory consisting of several higher-order shear deformable functions is employed to create the governing equations based on a von Kármán type nonlinear strain–displacement relationship. Many important parameters such as GPLs content, porous coefficient, beam’s geometry, sandwich thickness ratio and others which affect significantly the bending results of deflection and stresses of the beams are taken into account. All new results are presented in data and graphical forms which can serve as a benchmark for future research.