Free vibration analysis of a sandwich cylindrical shell with an FG core based on the CUF

An analytical approach for the free vibration behavior of a sandwich cylindrical shell with a functionally graded (FG) core is presented. It is considered that the FG distribution is in the direction of thickness. The material properties are temperature-dependent. The sandwich cylindrical shell with a FG core is considered with two cases. In the first model, i.e., Ceramic-FGM-Metal (CFM), the interior layer of the cylindrical shell is rich metal while the exterior layer is rich ceramic and the FG material is located between two layers and for the second model i.e., Metal-FGM-Ceramic (MFC), the material distribution is in reverse order. This study develops Carrera's Unified Formulation (CUF) to analyze sandwich cylindrical shell with an FG core for the first time. Considering the Principle of Virtual Displacements (PVDs) according to the CUF, the dependent boundary conditions and governing equations are obtained. The coupled governing equations are derived using Galerkin's method. In order to validate the present results, comparisons are made with the available solutions in the previous researches. The effects of different geometrical and material parameters on the free vibration behavior of a sandwich cylindrical shell with an FG core are examined.