  In this paper, the bending and free flexural vibration behaviour of sandwich
plates with carbon nanotube (CNT) reinforced facesheets are investigated using
QUAD-8 shear flexible element developed based on higher-order structural
theory. This theory accounts for the realistic variation of the displacements
through the thickness, and the possible discontinuity in slope at the
interface, and the thickness stretch affecting the transverse deflection. The
in-plane and rotary inertia terms are considered in the formulation. The
governing equations obtained using Lagrange's equation of motions are solved
for static and dynamic analyses considering a sandwich plate with homogeneous
core and CNT reinforced face sheets. The accuracy of the present formulation is
tested considering the problems for which solutions are available. A detailed
numerical study is carried out based on various higher-order models deduced
from the present theory to examine the influence of the volume fraction of the
CNT, core-to-face sheet thickness and the plate thickness ratio on the
global/local response of different sandwich plates.
