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This article proposes static, free vibration, and buckling analysis of thin-walled functionally graded (FG) sandwich and composite channel-section beams. It is based on the first-order shear deformable beam theory, which can recover to classical one by ignoring the shear effect. Ritz's approximation functions are developed to solve the characteristic problems. Both results from classical and the first-order shear deformable theories are given in a unified fashion. Ritz solutions are applied for thin-walled FG sandwich channel-section beams for the first time. Numerical examples are presented in relation to many important effects such as span-to-height ratio, material parameter, lay-ups, fiber orientation and boundary conditions on the beams' deflections, natural frequencies, and critical buckling loads. New results presented in this study can be of interests to the scientific and engineering community in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the Ritz-based solutions are developed for the bending, buckling and vibration behaviors of laminated composite beams with arbitrary lay-ups. A quasi-3D theory, which accounts for a higher-order variation of both the axial and transverse displacements, is used to capture the effects of both shear and normal deformations on the behaviors of composite beams. Numerical results for various boundary conditions are presented and compared with existing ones available in the literature. Besides, the effects of fiber angle, span-to-height ratio, material anisotropy and Poisson's ratio on the displacements, stresses, natural frequencies and buckling loads of the composite beams are investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]