Proceedings of the ASME 2016 Conference on Smart Materials, Adaptive Structures and Intelligent Systems

SMASIS2016
September 28-30, 2016, Stowe, VT, USA

SMASIS2016-9005

ESTIMATION OF ELASTIC PARAMETERS OF SANDWICH COMPOSITE PLATES

USING A GRADIENT BASED FINITE ELEMENT MODEL UPDATING APPROACH

Subhajit Mondal
Research Scholar
Department of Civil Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology
Kharagpur
Kharagpur, West Bengal, India

Sushanta Chakraborty
Associate Professor
Department of Civil Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology
Kharagpur
Kharagpur, West Bengal, India

ABSTRACT

Nilanjan Mitra
Associate Professor
Department of Civil Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology
Kharagpur
Kharagpur, West Bengal, India

of-plane material constants. A gradient based Inverse

Eigensensivity Method (IEM) has been implemented to identify
these material parameters of a rectangular sandwich composite
plate from natural frequencies. It may be noted that the initial
characterization test data may not be useful in predicting
accurate dynamic responses of existing degraded sandwich
structures, if the material constants have changed substantially.
Destructive characterization test on existing structure is mostly
not permitted as samples need to be extracted which may
damage the otherwise intact structure.

The dynamic behavior of sandwich composite structures needs

to be predicted as accurately as possible for ensuring safety and
serviceability. A properly converged finite element model can
accurately predict such behavior, if the current material
properties are determined within very close ranges to their
actual values. The initial nominal values of material properties
are guessed from established standards or from manufacturers
data, followed by verification through quasi-static
characterization tests of extracted samples. Such structures can
be modal tested to determine the dynamic responses very
accurately, as and when required. A mathematically well posed
inverse problem can thus be formulated to inversely update the
material parameters accurately from initial guesses through
finite element model updating procedures. Such exercise can be
conveniently used for condition assessment and health
monitoring of sandwich composite structures. The method is
capable of determining the degradation of material properties,
hence suitable for damage detection. The in-plane as well as
out-of-plane elastic moduli can be determined to predict the
actual responses which can be verified by physical
measurement. In the present investigation, the in-plane and outof-plane elastic parameters of the face sheets made of glass
fiber reinforced plastics, i.e. E 1 ,E 2 ,G 12 , G 13 ,G 23 of the face
sheet and the Youngs modulus (E) of the core of a sandwich
composite plate has been determined inversely from available
modal responses. The method is based on the correlation
between the dynamic responses as predicted using finite
element model and those measured from modal testing to form
the objective function, sensitive enough to the in-plane and out-

1 INTRODUCTION
Sandwich composite plates, consisting of a soft core and
thin laminated face sheets on both sides are being increasingly
utilized as different components of marine, aerial and terrestrial
structures. Their dynamic behavior needs to be predicted
accurately considering the safety and serviceability aspects of a
structure. The existing material property parameters of a
sandwich composite plate type of structure may vary
significantly from those specified by the manufacturers or
obtained from established standards. This is because of the
variation of properties of constituent materials, variation of
interface properties which could be actually achieved after
curing etc. Moreover, sandwich structure after long period of
existence may undergo sufficient degradation in material
properties. This must be incorporated in numerical model as
input to predict accurate dynamic responses. Thus, the
mathematical precision of a properly converged finite element
model alone cannot guarantee the reliable prediction of overall
dynamic behaviour of sandwich composite structures, unless
1

Copyright 2016 by ASME

the uncertainties in material properties are quantified and

incorporated within the finite element framework. The quasistatic characterization tests on specially prepared samples as
per established standards during the fabrication of the structure
remain the only source of information about possible material
constants to be used in modeling. However, these destructive
tests may have large amount of variations within the extracted
samples, as the property representation is localized. Unlike
isotropic materials, experimental characterization of layered
sandwich composite materials is cumbersome and time
consuming since a large number of property values need to be
determined from separately extracted samples for both the core
and the face sheets separately.

polyurethane foam core was modelled as rigid [11]. The

Youngs modulus and the loss factor were estimated from
measured frequency response functions (FRFs) using a genetic
algorithm. Skukis et al. characterized the nonlinear mechanical
properties of adhesive layers in sandwich composites from
measured vibration responses using an inverse technique based
on response surface methodology [12]. Arauju et al. identified
the material properties of both the core and face sheets using a
gradient based optimization algorithm [13]. The core is
modelled considering complex modulus and fractional
derivative concept. The laminated composite face sheets are
modelled using a layerwise formulation incorporating first
order shear deformation theory, whereas the core is modelled
using a higher order shear deformation theory. Only natural
frequencies and corresponding modal loss factors are used as
information. Rebillat and Boutillon estimated the in-plane
elastic parameters as well as the transverse shear moduli of
sandwich composite plates from measured modal properties
[14]. An equivalent homogeneous plate model with first order
shear deformation theory to represent the elastic behaviour and
a hysteretic model is used to represent the constitutive
behaviour. An extended Rayleigh-Ritz technique is used to
extract the modal parameters, such as the natural frequencies,
mode shapes and damping coefficients. Meruane and del-Fierro
identified deboned regions between the face sheets and the core
in aluminium honeycomb panels using an inverse genetic
algorithm [15].

Investigators have proposed various non-destructive

techniques, amongst which finite element model updating
technique combining the advantages of experimental modal
testing as well as finite element modeling to estimate material
properties have recently gained importance. However, although
the current literature provides plenty of experimental case
studies for laminated layered fibre reinforced plastic
composites to estimate material constants, only limited
experimental case studies are available for sandwich composite
structures. One of the most referred early examples of
estimation of material constants of fibre reinforced type of
layered materials is due to Deobald and Gibson [1]. There are
plenty of subsequent studies related to the determination of all
in-plane material parameters together, such as the Youngs
moduli (E 1 , E 2 ), shear modulus (G 12 ) and Poissons ratio ( 12 )
of rectangular orthotropic plates made of fibre reinforced
plastics (FRP). The above references advocated free boundary
conditions for modal testing to eliminate the boundary error.
Collins et al. were the first to introduce the gradient based
inverse eigensensitivity method (IEM) for finite element model
updating [2]. Later, Chen and Garba modified Collins
statistical approach into a more convenient matrix perturbation
method for convenient engineering applications [3]. Jung used
appropriate control of step sizes within the framework of IEM
to estimate parameters from dynamic responses more
efficiently [4]. Goni et al. have used control step size intuitively
to achieve better convergences while using gradient based
optimization techniques [5]. Dascotte applied this IEM to
determine the in-plane elastic constants of stiffened composite
cylindrical shells [6]. Mishra and Chakraborty have
implemented the same methodology to estimate the material
constants [7] and Mondal and Chakraborty estimated the
damping parameters of FRP type of structures [8]. On their
further investigation, Mondal and Chakraborty implemented
IEM for in-plane as well as out-of-plane parameters of layered
FRP structures in a three step process [9]. Shi et al. used the
inverse methodology for the material property identification of
sandwich beams from measured flexural modes [10]. In this
case, the sandwich core of the beam, as well as the fibre
reinforced plastic face sheets, both were modelled as isotropic
materials. Barbieri et al. estimated the material parameters of a
sandwich beam under cantilever condition in which the

The present investigation deals with determination of the

in-plane as well as the transverse material properties of
rectangular sandwich composite plates from measured dynamic
responses. The sandwich composite plates are modelled
considering separate layers of the core and the face sheets
employing finite element analysis technique. The Experimental
modal data were generated from a set of nominal values of
elastic parameters. These measured modal parameters are then
correlated with the predicted modal parameter values from
finite element analysis with different trial values of elastic
parameters of the sandwich composite plate. The objective
function thus formed from the difference between the two is
then used by the inverse eigensensitivity method to estimate the
material constants. The methodology needs computation of
sensitivities of eigenvalues with respect to the material
parameters, and eigenvectors are used to correlate the mode
shapes of the first few modes. Since the in-plane Poissions
ratio can only be estimated properly when sufficient number of
torsional modes are included as information, this has been kept
out of scope for the present investigation. First, numerically
simulated examples are presented to explain the entire
methodology considering the observed modal data to be noise
free. Then, random noise is added to this noise free modal data
to investigate the variations in estimated material parameters.
2 MATHEMATICAL FORMULATION AND NUMERICAL
EXAMPLE

Copyright 2016 by ASME

An eight noded 3D brick element (C3D8R) is used in

ABAQUS environment for the finite element modeling of a
sandwich composite plate of size 350 mm x 250 mm, with core
and face sheet thicknesses of 30 mm and 2.5 mm respectively
[16]. Experimental modal data are simulated using the same
finite element model and using nominal material parameters.
The material constants chosen for the face sheets are E 1 = 15
GPa, E 2 =10 GPa, G 12 =3 GPa and Poissons ratio 12 =0.1 for
both the face sheets. The transverse shear moduli selected are
G 13 =5 MPa and G 23 =4 MPa respectively. The Youngs
modulus and the Poissons ratio of the core are taken to be
E=0.15 GPa, and =0.3 respectively. The mass densities of the
core and face sheets are assumed as 100 kg/m3 and 1400 kg/m3
respectively [17]. Figure 1 shows the schematic diagram of the
sandwich composite plate.

Here,

{re } are

the corrections to be made to the initially

guessed parameters and [S] is the sensitivity matrix. The finite

element model of the sandwich composite plate is then updated
using the revised values of the parameters(5)
{re }i +1 = {re }i + {re }
The error between the experimental observation and finite
element modeling of the sandwich composite plate is thus
minimised in a least square sense through the Inverse
Eigensensitivity Method.

Figure 1. Schematic diagram of the sandwich composite plate.

The relationship between a function f and variable q can be
written using Taylor series expansion assuming first order
sensitivity [18] as follows
n
f
f ( q ) f ( q0 ) +
( q q0 )

i =1 qi q q
i
0

(1)
Figure 2. Flow chart of model updating algorithm to identify
material parameters.

Here, q indicates the elastic material parameters of the core or

the face sheets of the sandwich composite plate (to be
identified) and q 0 are the initial values of these parameters, f(q)
are the experimentally determined eigenvalues and
eigenvectors,

( f

/ qi )

q =q
i 0

are

the

sensitivity

of

Modal Assurance Criteria (MAC) which is defined as the

measure of similarity or dissimilarity between two vectors is
employed to check correlation between the measured mode
shapes and the numerical mode shapes. MAC value equal to 1
indicate good correlation between two mode shapes, whereas
MAC value close to 0 indicates uncorrelated modes.
For the present investigation the above mentioned gradient
based Inverse Eigensensitivity Method (IEM) implemented
through the software FEMTools has been used to obtain the
updated Youngs moduli and shear moduli for both the core and
face sheets of the sandwich composite plate [18-19].
The entire methodology is explained through a flow chart in
Fig. 2 and is self explanatory. The procedure stops when the
error between the finite element model and the experiment falls
below a predetermined small quantity.

the

parameters. In matrix form the above equation can be written

briefly as
f ( qi )
(2)
=
{ f }
{ q }
qi
where, f and q are the differences in eigen-properties and
the material parameters respectively. The objective function (F)
can be expressed in vector form as

F=
{f } {f }
T

(3)

The derivative F needs to be set to zero to minimize the

{q}
objective function with respect to the selected parameters.
These leads to the difference equation

{f }=

[ S ] {re }

3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The elastic material properties, viz. the in-plane Youngs
moduli (E 1 , E 2 ), in-plane shear modulus (G 12 ), shear moduli in
transverse direction (G 13 and G 23 ) of the face-sheets on both
sides of the sandwich composite plate and the Youngs modulus

(4)

Copyright 2016 by ASME

(E) of the isotropic core are determined in this numerically

simulated problem. The shear modulus of the isotropic core can
be determined if accurate information about the Poissons ratio
is made available. The experimental frequencies and mode
shapes are generated from the eigensolutions of the governing
differential equation of motion of the sandwich plate using the
same finite element model. These numerically simulated
experimental modal properties are polluted with random noise
while examining the noise sensitivity of the algorithm. The
simulated experimental natural frequencies and the
corresponding mode shapes are given in Fig. 3.

Figure 4. Sensitivity of parameters with respect to the

natural frequencies.
A weighted least square inverse eigensensitivity approach
has been taken to minimize the objective function depicting the
differences in modal properties as predicted using a set of initial
material properties and as obtained from the simulated modal
responses. The MAC value is used to correlate 'experimental
modes' and numerical modes after updating. The program is run
from various initial values of the parameters and the
convergence of these parameters to the actual property values
are shown in Fig. 5-10.
The convergences are observed to be monotonic for all the
parameters and the finally converged values from different sets
of initial trial values (T1-T6) of elastic parameters match
exactly with the actual material properties.

Figure 3. First few mode shape of sandwich composite

plate.
First the parameter estimation exercise is carried out from
a number of initial values of parameters, taking the
experimental modal data as noise free. Then upto 2% of
random noise is added to these reference modal parameters. It
is to be mentioned that with the current state-of-the-art of
modal testing and subsequent analysis, the level of random
noise can be restricted below 1% in the measurement of
frequencies. Same is the experience of the authors while
conducting the real experimental modal testing with sandwich
plate [17].
4 ESTIMATION OF MATERIAL PARAMETERS FROM
NOISE FREE MODAL DATA

Figure 5. Convergence curve for elastic modulus of core

(E) of sandwich composite plate without noise.

The sensitivities of the natural frequencies (responses) with

respect to the elastic parameters (E of core as parameter 1 and
E 1 , E 2 , G 12 , G 13 , G 23 of face sheets as parameters 2-6
respectively) of the sandwich plate are shown in Fig. 4. It can
easily be identified that the observed modal properties are much
more sensitive to the Youngs modulus of the core than the
other parameters. The in-plane Youngs moduli of the face
sheets are seen to be more sensitive than the transverse shear
moduli.

Copyright 2016 by ASME

Figure 9. Convergence curve for shear modulus of face

sheet (G 13 ) of sandwich composite plate without noise.
Figure 6. Convergence curve for elastic modulus of face
sheet (E 1 ) of sandwich composite plate without noise.

Figure 10. Convergence curve for shear modulus of face

sheet (G 23 ) of sandwich composite plate without noise.
Figure 7. Convergence curve for elastic modulus of face
sheet (E 2 ) of sandwich composite plate without noise.

5 ESTIMATION OF MATERIAL PARAMETERS FROM

NATURAL FREQUENCIES POLLUTED BY RANDOM
NOISE
However carefully conducted, an actual experimental
investigation will contain some amount of noise. To test the
performance of the present algorithm while dealing with noisy
data from real experiment, the simulated experimental
frequencies are now polluted with random noise of varying
degree and their effects on the finally estimated material
parameters are observed.
For low level of random noise (0.1% to 0.5 % of the noise
free data) the updating algorithm shows excellent accuracy with
very less deviation from the actual solution and the algorithm
converged within a few iterations like the no-noise case. Even
with random noise level as high as 1% of the measured
frequencies, the algorithm gives sufficient accuracy for some
parameters. However, for noise level higher than this, the
estimated parameters started showing larger deviations and the
program is observed to have divergences for a few cases. This
especially started occurring for the transverse elastic properties.
Figure 6 showing the convergence curve for typical case with
different levels of added noise to the frequencies. T1-T4 in Fig.
10-15 indicate estimation of parameters for noise level up-to
1%, whereas, T5 indicates the same for 2% noise level.

Figure 8. Convergence curve for shear modulus of face

sheet (G 12 ) of sandwich composite plate without noise.

Copyright 2016 by ASME

Figure 11. Convergence curve for elastic modulus of core

(E) of sandwich composite plate with added noise in
frequencies.

Figure 14. Convergence curve for shear modulus of face

sheet (G 12 ) of sandwich composite plate with added noise in
frequencies.

Figure 12. Convergence curve for elastic modulus of face

sheet (E 1 ) of sandwich composite plate with added noise in
frequencies.

Figure 15. Convergence curve for shear modulus of face

sheet (G 13 ) of sandwich composite plate with added noise in
frequencies.

Figure 13. Convergence curve for elastic modulus of face

sheet (E 2 ) of sandwich composite plate with added noise in
frequencies.
Figure 16. Convergence curve for shear modulus of face sheet
(G 23 ) of sandwich composite plate with added noise in
frequencies.

Copyright 2016 by ASME

The program is run from a set of initial values of the parameters

with different level of noise and the results are shown in Fig.
11-16. The convergences show that the finite element model
updating algorithm works acceptably well within 1% of noise
level in frequencies.

6 CONCLUSION
An inverse approach using finite element model updating
technique can be a very promising methodology for accurately
determining material property parameters of both the in-plane
and out-of-plane material constants of face sheets and Youngs
modulus of core of sandwich composite plates nondestructively which otherwise is difficult to determine from any
direct test. The methodology can be applied for condition
assessment and health monitoring of such sandwich composite
structures by determining the degraded properties time to time
from measured dynamic responses non-destructively.

Table 1 compares the frequencies of the actual plate obtained

from the nominal values of the parameters and the frequencies
obtained from the updated material properties. It can be
observed that the correlation is very good. Table 2 shows the
assumed nominal elastic property as well as the updated elastic
material parameter from the natural frequencies. The results
show good accuracy, even in presence of 1% noise. Error in the
updated material properties is found to be less than 1% which is
acceptable and also validate the proposed finite element model
updating algorithm.

REFERENCE

Table1: Frequency of sandwich plate for a typical finite element

model updating with and without noise

[1] Deobald, L.R, Gibson, R.F., 1998, "Determination of elastic

constant of orthotropic plate by modal analysis/rayleigh-ritz
technique", Journal of Sound and Vibration, 124(2), pp.269283.
[2] Collins, J. D., Hart, G. C., Hasselman, T. K., Kennedy, B.,
1974, "Statistical identification of structure", AIAA Journal,
12(2), pp.185-190.
[3] Chen, J.C., Garba, J. A., 1980, "Analytical model
improvement using modal test results", AIAA Journal, 25(11),
pp. 1494-1499.
[4] Jung, H., 1992, "Structural dynamic model updating using
eigensensitivity analysis", PhD Dissertation, Imperial College,
London.
[5] Goni, sk. A., Mondal, S., Chakraborty, S., 2015, "A new
gradient based step size controlled inverse eigen sensitivity
algorithm for
identification of material and boundary
parameters of plates", Journal of Vibration and Control, 116,
doi: 10.1177/1077546315619076.
[6] Dascotte, E., 1992, "Material identification of composite
structure from combined use of finite element analysis and
experimental modal analysis", 10th IMAC,1274-1280. San
Diego, California.
[7] Mishra, A., Chakraborty, S., 2015, "Determination of
material parameters of FRP plates with
rotational flexibility
at boundaries using experimental modal testing and model
updating", Experimental Mechanics, 55(5),pp. 803-815.
[8] Mondal, S., Chakraborty, S., 2016, "An inverse approach
for the determination of viscous damping model of fibre
reinforced plastic beams using finite element model updating",
International Journal of Acoustics and Vibration, 21(1),93-102.
http://dx.doi.org/10.20855/ijav.2016.21.1399.
[9] Mondal, S., Chakraborty, S., 2016, "Identification of inplane and out-of-plane elastic parameters of orthotropic
composite structures". ICSV23, Athens (Greece), 10-14 July
2016.
[10] Shi, Y., Hugo, S., Hongxing, H., 2006, "Material parameter
identification of sandwich beams by an inverse method",
Journal of Sound and Vibration, 290(3-5), pp.12341255.

Frequency (Hz) of sandwich plate

Mo
de
No.

With
nominal
values of
elastic
parameters

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

428.45
664.48
859.74
901.06
1015.80
1160.00
1297.60
1305.30

With
updated
elastic
parameters
(using
noise free
modal data)
428.48
664.49
859.45
901.09
1015.70
1159.90
1297.80
1305.50

With
updated
elastic
parameters
(using 1%
noise in
frequency)
428.08
670.60
857.03
902.88
1014.1
1162.0
1295.62
1307.5

%
Error
(using
1%
noise in
frequen
cy)
0.08
0.92
0.31
0.20
0.16
0.17
0.15
0.16

Table 2: Elastic material parameter of sandwich composite

plate
Elastic Actual
parameter values
(N/m)

E
Ex
Ey
G xy
G xz
G yz

1.50E8
1.5E10
1.0E10
3.00E9
5.00E6
4.00E6

Updated
values
(without noise)
(N/m)
1.52E8
1.51E10
1.01E10
3.016E9
4.78E6
3.86E6

Updated
values
(with 1%
noise)
(N/m)
1.55E8
1.52E10
1.01E10
3.00E9
5.28E6
4.09E6

% Error
(with
1%
noise)
3.33
1.33
1.00
0.00
5.6
2.25

Copyright 2016 by ASME

[11] Barbieri, N., Barbieri, R., Winikies L. C., 2010,

"Parameters estimation of sandwich beam model with rigid
polyurethane foam core", Mechanical Systems and Signal
Processing. 24(2), pp. 406415.
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Technique for the Viscoelastic Material Properties
Characterisation", Construction Science, 3, pp.47-52,doi:
10.2478/v10311-012-0007-9.
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Herskovits, J., 2010, "Optimal design and parameter estimation
of frequency dependent viscoelastic laminated sandwich
composite plates", Composite Structures, 92(9), pp. 2321
2327.
[14] Rebillat M., Boutillon, Xavier., 2011, "Measurement of
relevant elastic and damping material properties in sandwich
thick plates", Journal of Sound and Vibration, Elsevier, 30 (25),
pp.6098-6121.
[15] Meruane, V. , delFierro, V., 2015,"An inverse parallel
genetic algorithm for the identification of skin/core debonding
in honeycomb aluminium panels", Structural Control Health
Monitoring', 22(12), pp. 14261439.
[16] ABAQUS/Standard Users Manual for Version 6.10
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"Dynamic performance of sandwich composite plates with
circular hole/cut-out: A mixed experimentalnumerical study",
Composite Structures 131, pp. 479489.
[18] Mottershead, J.E., Link, M., Friswell, M.I., 2011 "The
sensitivity method in finite element model updating: A tutorial",
Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing, 25(7) pp. 2275
2296.
[19]FEMtools Manual, Dynamic design solutions, Version
3.6.1.
[20] Randall J. A., 2003, "The modal assurance criterion
Twenty years of use and abuse". Journal of Sound and
Vibration, 14-20.

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