End effects for anti-plane shear deformations of sandwich structures (Q1905670)

The authors study the influence of material inhomogeneity and linear anisotropy and their combined effects on the decay of Saint-Venant's end effects under self-equilibrated edge loads for symmetric sandwich structures in the context of anti-plane shear. Mathematically, one has to solve a second-order linear elliptic partial differential equation with discontinuous coefficients and with Neumann or Dirichlet boundary conditions. Both perfect and imperfect bonding, i.e. varying interfacial conditions, are considered. Numerical results for exact and estimated decay rates in various cases are plotted into diagrams.