Free vibration of functionally graded sandwich plates in thermal environments

This paper presents an analytical solution for the free vibration of functionally graded material (FGM) sandwich plates in a thermal environment. An equivalent-single-layer (ESL) plate theory with four variables is used to obtain the solution. Two types of sandwich plates are examined in this study: one with FGM face sheets and a homogeneous core and the other with an FGM core and homogeneous face sheets. The governing equations of motion are derived based on Hamilton's principle and then solved using the Navier method. The results of natural frequencies of simply supported FGM sandwich plates are compared with the available solutions in the literature. The effects of volume fraction distribution, geometrical parameters, and temperature increments on the free vibration characteristics are discussed in detail.