A novel finite element formulation based on extended higher-order theory for sandwich plates of arbitrary aspect ratio

The extended higher-order sandwich plate theory for plates with arbitrary aspect ratio was formulated for two-dimensional orthotropic sandwich plates. The novelty of the theory is that it considers five generalized co-ordinates in the core (two axial and one transverse displacements at centroid of the core, one rotation at the centroid of the core about x-axis and one rotation at the centroid of the core about y-axis). Theory is very accurate when compared with the exact elasticity solution in terms of stresses and displacement both. In the current paper, a novel two dimensional rectangular element is developed based on the extended higher-order sandwich plate theory. Elemental equations along with the procedure to derive these is given in the paper. Developed finite element model is validated by comparing the results with elasticity solution and the theory itself for two sandwich plate configurations. The comparison shows that results obtained from the proposed finite element are in very good agreement with elasticity in terms of displacements and stresses both. Thus the proposed element is a powerful analysis tool which can be used for accurately analyzing the real world structures involving sandwich plates at a low computational cost.