Deflections and Stresses of a Clamped Rectangular Sandwich Beam

The variational principle of minimum potential energy is used to determine the deflections and stresses of a flat isotropic sandwich beam with freely sliding clamped ends when subjected to symmetrical lateral loads and end axial forces. Expressions are obtained for the cases of tensile, compressive, and no axial load, acting together with a general symmetrical transverse loading. Curves for the nondimensional deflections and stresses are presented for a uniformly loaded sandwich beam coupled with axial load as functions of two structural parameters. A representative numerical example showing the application of the curves is also given.