Axial decay of stresses in a layered composite with slipping interfaces

The axial diffusion of self-equilibrated end loads in sandwich strip composites composed of two dissimilar isotropic elastic materials with imperfect interfaces, is investigated in the context of the plane problem. An Airy stress function approach is utilized to obtain the characteristic equation where the non-zero roots correspond to the decay rates. The dominant exponential decay rate, which corresponds to the smallest positive real part of the roots, is presented in a convenient form for all combinations of materials and volume fractions. For the case of symmetric deformation of a sandwich strip with a relatively soft inner core, the decay rates are much slower for all volume fractions when compared to a strip with a relatively rigid inner core. The analysis also shows that decay rates for a composite strip with arbitrary end loadings are governed by the symmetric case.