Localised formulations for thick ``sandwich'' laminated and composite structures (Q1286823)

The authors study the postbuckling regime of a sandwiched panel under compressive loading. In contrast to classical Rayleigh-Ritz analysis, the present formulation makes it possible to determine the shape of deflection. The authors use the equations of classical elasticity to express the potential energy in terms of displacement function. The technique for the analysis of localized solutions is presented on the example of a beam on nonlinear elastic foundation. The concept of localization is introduced by using a dynamical analogy and the double scale perturbation method, and is applied to the sandwiched panel to derive the governing amplitude modulation equation. The resulting formulation is discussed by using some examples, and by solving analytically and numerically the amplitude differential equations.