Two-scale micropolar plate model for web-core sandwich panels

Abstract: A 2-D micropolar equivalent single-layer (ESL), first-order shear deformation (FSDT) plate model for 3-D web-core sandwich panels is developed. First, a 3-D web-core unit cell is modeled by classical shell finite elements. A discrete-to-continuum transformation is applied to the microscale unit cell and its strain and kinetic energy densities are expressed in terms of the macroscale 2-D plate kinematics. The hyperelastic constitutive relations and the equations of motion (via Hamilton's principle) for the plate are derived by assuming energy equivalence between the 3-D unit cell and the 2-D plate. The Navier solution is developed for the 2-D micropolar ESL-FSDT plate model to study the bending, buckling, and free vibration of simply-supported web-core sandwich panels. In a line load bending problem, a 2-D classical ESL-FSDT plate model yields displacement errors of 34-175% for face sheet thicknesses of 2-10 mm compared to a 3-D FE solution, whereas the 2-D micropolar model gives only small errors of 2.7-3.4% as it can emulate the 3-D deformations better through non-classical antisymmetric shear behavior and local bending and twisting.