BENDING ANALYSIS OF CORRUGATED-CORE SANDWICH PLATES BY THE ELEMENT-FREE GALERKIN METHOD

In order to analyze the flexure behavior of corrugated-core sandwich plates, a meshfree model of the structure is proposed in this paper. The corrugated-core sandwich plate is considered as a composite structure with three components, i.e., two flat plates located on the top and bottom of the structure and one corrugated core in the middle. The corrugated core is approximated by an equivalent orthotropic plate. Based on the first-order shear deformation theory (FSDT), the stiffness equations of the plates are established using the element-free Galerkin method. After implementing the displacement compatibility conditions, the stiffness equations of the plates are superposed to obtain the stiffness equation of the entire structure. The full transformation method is employed to enforce the essential boundary conditions. Numerical examples show that the proposed model has such advantages as high efficiency, good accuracy and easy implementation.