Dynamic Analysis with Stress Recovery for Functionally Graded Materials: Numerical Simulation and Experimental Benchmarking

The objectives of this work were: to design and build material specimens which behave, under mechanical loading, such as functionally graded materials; to perform dynamic vibration tests on the produced specimens, and; to numerically simulate the vibration tests in order to validate a proposed numerical model for functionally graded materials characterization. The work was divided in the following phases: confection of the specimens; adoption of the composite beam model for the produced specimens; preparation and execution of the vibration laboratory tests; mathematical modeling for the analytical resolution of the composite beam vibration problem; definition of the numerical model to be applied to the problem; execution of the numerical simulation of the dynamic tests, and; comparative analysis between the analytical, experimental, and numerical results. The experimental, analytical, and numerical tests present similar results for all specimens. Natural vibration frequencies, whether obtained by any means (experimental, analytical, or numerical) differ not more than 15.4%. The proposed numerical method presents itself, thus, adequate for layered material modeling.