Thermal vibration analysis of SMA hybrid composite double curved sandwich panels

This work analyses the thermal vibration of a double curved sandwich panel (DCSP) with embedded pre-strained shape memory alloy (SMA) wires hybrid composite face sheets and soft core. The von Karman nonlinear displacement–strain relationships are here applied to handle large deflections due to a thermal loading. The equations of motion are derived by applying the Hamilton’s principle and the first order shear deformation theory (FSDT) for the composite face sheets and core layer. This last one features the displacement field of the Frostig's second model here, used to model the DCSP. The material properties of the DCSP are assumed to be both temperature-dependent (TD) and/or temperature-independent (TI). The effect of the SMA wires is captured by adding a stress recovery within the formulation. This term is determined by using a one-dimensional Brinson’s model in the constitutive equations of the SMA composite face sheets during the phase transformation of the pre-strained SMA wires. It is verified that SMAs can play a key role within DCSPs subjected to a thermal loading condition, whereby the proposed formulation is validated comparatively against the available literature. We also explore the sensitivity of the vibration response for a varying SMA activation temperature, volume fraction, and pre-strain, as well as for different curvature ratios, thickness ratios and different sequences in composite layers.