3D Thermal Stresses in Composite Laminates Under Steady-State Through-Thickness Thermal Conduction

Abstract

In this study, 3D thermal stresses in composite laminates under steady-state through thickness thermal conduction are investigated by means of a stress function-based approach. One-dimensional thermal conduction is solved for composite laminate and the layerwise temperature distribution is calculated first. The principle of complementary virtual work is employed to develop the governing equations. Their solutions are obtained by using the stress function-based approach, where the stress functions are taken from the Lekhnitskii stress functions in terms of in-plane stress functions and out-of-plane stress functions. With the Rayleigh–Ritz method, the stress fields can be solved by first solving a standard eigenvalue problem. The proposed method is not merely computationally efficient and accurate. The stress fields also strictly satisfy the prescribed boundary conditions validated by the results of finite element method (FEM) results. Finally, some of the results will be given for discussion considering different layup stacking sequences, thermal conductivities and overall temperature differences. From the results, we find that the thermal conductivity greatly affects the stress distributions and peak values of stresses increase linearly for the present model. The proposed method can be used for predicting 3D thermal stresses in composite laminates when subjected to thermal loading.