In this paper, the nonlinear vibrational behavior of a sandwich plate with embedded viscoelastic material is studied through the use of constitutive equations with fractional derivatives. The studied sandwich structure is consisted of a viscoelastic core that is located between the faces of functionally graded magneto-electro-elastic (FG-MEE). In order to determine the frequency-dependent feature of the viscoelastic layer, four-parameter fractional derivative model is utilized. The material properties of FG-MEE face sheets have been distributed considering the power law scheme along the thickness. In addition, for derivation of the governing equations on the sandwich plate, first-order shear deformation plate theory along with von Karman-type of kinematic nonlinearity are implemented. The derived partial differential equations (PDEs) have been transformed to the ordinary differential equations (ODEs) through the Galerkin method. After that, the nonlinear vibration equations for the sandwich plate have been solved by multiple time scale perturbation technique. Moreover, for evaluating the effect of different parameters such as electric and magnetic fields, fractional order, the ratio of the core-to-face thickness and the power low index on the nonlinear vibration characteristics of sandwich plates with FG-MEE face sheets, the parametric analysis has been performed. The obtained results revealed the enhanced nonlinear natural frequency through an increment in the fractional order. Furthermore, the prominent influence of fractional order on the nonlinear frequency of sandwich plate was declared at the negative electric potential and positive magnetic potential.
