Thermal Bending of Thick Rectangular Plates of Bimodulus Composite Materials

Abstract : Closed-form and finite-element solutions are presented for thermal bending and stretching of laminated composite plates. The material of each layer is assumed to be elastically and thermoelastically orthotropic and bimodular, i.e., having different properties depending upon whether the fiber-direction normal strain is tensile or compressive. The formulations are based on the thermoelastic version of the Whitney-Pagano laminated plate theory, which includes thickness shear deformations. Numerical results are obtained for deflections and neutral-surface positions associated with normal strains in both of the in-plane coordinates. The closed-form and finite-element results are found to be in good agreement. (Author)