Dynamics of geometrically-exact sandwich beams/1-D plates: Computational aspects (Q1376629)

A Galerkin projection of the complete equations of motion of geometrically-exact sandwich beams applicable to one-dimensional plates is presented. The beam can take any arbitrary initial position in the two-dimensional space. Each layer of the beam can have different material constants with no restriction on the mass distribution and layer thickness; further, each layer can take on different length, thus allowing the modeling of multilayer structures with ply drop-offs. Finite rotation and shear deformation are accommodated for in each layer. Extensive numerical examples including sandwich beams with three identical layers, sandwich structures with ply drop-off, free flying and spin-up maneuver of sandwich beams are presented to illustrate the applicability of the formulation.