A two-dimensional closed-form solution for the free-vibrations analysis of piezoelectric sandwich plates

This work presents a two-dimensional (2D) closed-form solution for the free-vibrations analysis of simply-supported piezoelectric sandwich plates. It has the originality to consider all components of the electric field and displacement, thus satisfying exactly the electric equilibrium equation. Besides, the formulation considers full layerwise first-order shear deformation theory and through-thickness quadratic electric potential. Its independent mechanical and electric variables are decomposed using Fourier series expansions, then substituted in the derived mechanical and electric 2D equations of motion. The resulting eigenvalue system is then condensed so that only nine mechanical unknowns are retained. After its validation on single- and three-layer piezoelectric, and hybrid sandwich plates, the present approach was then used to analyze thickness modes of a square sandwich plate with piezoceramic faces and elastic cross-ply composite core. It was found that only the first three thickness modes are global, thus can be modeled by the mixed equivalent single-layer/layerwise approach, often retained in the literature; the remaining higher thickness modes being characteristic of sandwich behavior; i.e., dominated by the deformations of either the core or the faces. These results, together with presented through-thickness variations of the mechanical and electric variables clearly recommend full layerwise modeling. Several numerical results are provided for future reference for validation of 2D approximate analytical or numerical approaches; in particular, of 2D piezoelectric adaptive finite elements.