The effects of kinematics on post-buckling analysis of sandwich structures

Abstract The aim of this work is to investigate the effects of kinematics approximation on post-buckling analysis of sandwich structures. To this end, a novel one-dimensional (1D) layer-wise model is proposed, where the core is approximated by Mac Laurin's polynomial functions, and the skins are modelled by Euler-Bernoulli beam theory. The resulting nonlinear equations are solved by the Asymptotic Numerical Method (ANM), in which the bifurcation indicator is introduced to precisely detect the bifurcation points and the corresponding instability patterns. By varying the polynomial order in the core, various kinematics models are generated automatically, and then evaluated in the post-buckling stage. According to the comparison results, we finally propose an optimized model that is valid in a wide range of geometric and material parameters.