On the bending of viscoelastic plates made of polymer foams

Considering the viscoelastic behavior of polymer foams a new plate theory based on the direct approach is introduced and applied to plates composed of functionally graded materials (FGM). The governing two-dimensional equations are formulated for a deformable surface, the viscoelastic stiffness parameters are identified assuming linear-viscoelastic material behavior. The material properties are changing in the thickness direction. Solving some problems of the global structural analysis it will be demonstrated that in some cases the results significantly differ from the results based on the Kirchhoff-type theory.