Analysis of buckling behavior in advanced sandwich composite beams using a novel hyperbolic shear deformation theory

The buckling behavior of advanced sandwich composite beams is critical to their performance and stability, and understanding this behavior is essential for optimizing their design. This research aims to develop a new theory to investigate the buckling behavior of isotropic and functionally graded (FG) sandwich beams under various boundary conditions. The proposed theory eliminates the necessity of employing shear correction factors as it considers the parabolic variation of the shear stress distribution along the thickness. Based on Galerkin's method, a novel analytical solution is applied to solve the governing equilibrium equations. Considering that the material properties of functionally graded sandwich beams are graded in thickness according to a power-law distribution. A key aspect of this approach is to compare results obtained from the proposed theory with those derived from established higher-order shear deformation beam theories, intending to validate the accuracy and reliability of the new theory by comparing it with existing literature. In addition, the effects of different boundary conditions, FG material distribution, face-to-core thickness ratio, length-to-thickness ratio and volume fraction index on the critical buckling of FG sandwich beams are studied and discussed in detail. Our study showed that the shear deformation effect is remarkably significant for the case of thick or moderately thick beams. However, it is negligible in the case of slender beams. Finally, the presented findings and benchmark results offer a foundation for future research and design considerations within the domain of composite materials and structural engineering.