Application of Carrera Unified Formulation to study the effect of porosity on natural frequencies of thick porous–cellular plates

Carrera Unified Formulation (CUF) is used for free vibration analysis of Levy-type thick rectangular porous–cellular plates. The variation of porosity through the thickness causes mechanical properties to change along the thickness. Properties are modeled by a simple cosine rule. The equations of motion are solved analytically for Levy-type rectangular porous–cellular plates using state space method. The correctness of this approach is confirmed through comparison studies with published results based on highly accurate approaches. Different orders of model are used to enhance the accuracy of the method in order to obtain the exact frequencies of thick and very thick porous–cellular plates. The effects of the coefficient of plate porosity and the thickness–length ratio as well as the aspect ratio, on the frequencies are investigated for Levy-type boundary conditions. It is found that natural frequencies of the porous–cellular thick plates decrease as the coefficient of plate porosity increases in all studied boundary conditions.