Deflection Response of Structural Circular Sandwich Plates Subject to Uniform, Concentrated and Linearly Varying Load

Abstract

This research is based on the study of the deflection response of a structural circular sandwich plate, simply supported or clamped at its boundary, under different loading configurations (uniformly distributed, concentrated, and linearly varying load). The non-linear governing differential equation of the plate was solved using an Analytical method, Variational Iteration Method (VIM), after which the Finite Element Method (FEM) was used to validate its accuracy. Results showed a significantly higher deflection value for the simply supported plate compared to the clamped plate for all the various loading configurations, where a sandwich plate of radius 100mm under clamped conditions generated deflection of 0.05mm when exposed to a uniform load while a deflection of 0.25mm for simply supported condition. The concentrated load was also discovered to have a major effect on the body of the sandwich plate as it was seen to generate the highest deflection among all loading configurations regardless of its boundary conditions where a simply supported condition with a point load had a high deflection amounting to 2.1mm.