Free vibration analysis of sandwich FGM shells using isogeometric B-spline finite strip method

This paper presents a free vibration analysis of shell panels made of functionally graded material (FGM) in the form of the ordinary and sandwich FGM and laminated shells using the isogeometric B3-spline finite strip method (IG-SFSM). B3-spline and Lagrangian interpolation are employed along the longitudinal and transverse directions respectively in this type of finite strip. The introduced finite strip formulation is based on the degenerated shell method, which provides variable thickness, arbitrary geometries, and analysis of thin or thick shells. Validity of the obtained natural frequencies by IG-SFSM is checked by comparison with results extracted from references for similar cases in different examples. These examples incorporate several geometries, materials, boundary conditions, and continuous thickness variation. A comparison of these two kinds of results and their proximity showed that the introduced IG-SFSM is a reliable tool which can be used in analysis of shells with the aforementioned properties.