Free vibration response of laminated sandwich beams having a soft core is studied by using a recently developed C0 finite element beam model. The model has been developed based on higher order zigzag theory where the in-plane displacement variation is considered to be cubic for both the face sheets and the core. The transverse displacement is assumed to be quadratic within the core while it remains constant in the faces beyond the core. The model satisfies the condition of transverse shear stress continuity at the layer interfaces and the zero transverse shear stress condition at the top and bottom of the beam. The nodal field variables are chosen in an efficient manner to overcome the problem of continuity requirement of the derivatives of transverse displacements. Numerical examples on free vibration covering different features of laminated composite and sandwich beams are presented. Many new results are also presented which should be useful for future research.
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