Free and forced vibration response of sandwiched composite plate with functionally graded carbon and glass fiber–reinforced polymeric face sheet

The face-sheet of fiber-reinforced polymeric sandwich-plate is main carrier of load. Here, functional gradations (FGs) of fibers in the face-sheet are conducted by weaving both carbon and glass fiber in each fabric layer as a novel piece of work to prepare two types of fiber-reinforced functionally-graded- sandwich-plates (FRFGSP) with honeycomb core. The face-sheet is made from six layers of fabrics in epoxy base (50:50 volume-fraction) and the hexagonal honeycomb core is 3-D printed from poly-lactic-acid and polyethylene-terephthalate. The free and forced vibration response of these structures are experimented. The results obtained are compared with analytical and theoretical results. Reddy’s third order theory is used for core while first order shear deformation theory is used for face-sheet. It is observed that though preparation is hectic task, the strength of FRFGSP levels to sandwich composite plates (only 5% to 7% variation) prepared from carbon fiber in face-sheets. Further, effect of end supports, aspect ratios, core material, and unit cell configurations on the dynamic response are determined and reported.