Stochastic Free Vibration Analysis of Sandwich Plates: A Radial Basis Function Approach

Abstract

In this paper, stochastic free vibration analysis of sandwich plate using a radial basis function (RBF) approach is carried out. Due to uncertain material anisotropy and inherent manufacturing inaccuracies, such types of structures are subject to variability. It is therefore required to consider the randomness in input parameters to assess the stochastic free vibration behaviour of sandwich plates which have significant computational challenges. The mathematical formulation is developed based on the C0 stochastic finite element method (SFEM) coupled with higher-order zigzag theory (HOZT). Natural frequency analysis is conducted for stochasticity in ply orientation angle, face sheet thickness, core thickness, face sheet material properties, core material properties and skew angle. The cost-effective and computationally efficient RBF model is utilized as the surrogate to obtain the uncertain first five natural frequencies. In a single array, the global stiffness matrix is stored by using skyline techniques, while it is solved by subspace iteration.