Abstract
Generic differential equations of motion for a three-layer sandwich shell with viscoelastic core are derived. The Hamilton’s principle and Donnell-Mushtari-Vlasov simplification are employed in the derivation. The differential equations, unlike the existing models with five displacements, contain only three displacements, that are one transverse displacement and two in-plane displacements of the host structure. The proposed theory is generic and can be specialized to account for many other commonly occurring geometry, such as spheres, cylinders, plates, cones, ..., etc. The theory can be directly applied to the studies of shells / plates with constrained damping (CLD) layer. The theory can also be degenerated into one single layer or two-layer structures. Specialization of the generic theory to cylindrical shell is focused and an example is demonstrated in this paper. The results of one single layer shell agreed well with the classical shell theory. Two-layer shell models proved to be accurate and can be used for the studies of active vibration control and smart material developments.
