Thermoelastic Behaviors of Temperature-Dependent Multilayer Arches under Thermomechanical Loadings

Abstract

This work presents analytical solutions for thermoelastic behaviors of multilayer arches with temperature-dependent (TD) thermomechanical properties under thermomechanical loadings. The temperature is varied across the thickness of the arch. Firstly, an arched-slice model is developed, which divides every layer of the arch into numerous hypothetical arched slices with uniform thermomechanical properties. Based on the model, the nonlinear heat conduction equations across the thickness of the arch are solved using the iteration approach, and then the thermoelastic equations obtained from the two-dimensional thermoelasticity theory are solved using the state-space approach and transfer-matrix approach. The present solutions are compared with those obtained using the finite element method and the Euler–Bernoulli theory (EBT). It is found that the error of the EBT increases when the angle of the arch increases or the length-to-thickness ratio decreases. Finally, numerical examples are conducted to analyze the effects of surface temperature and TD thermomechanical properties on the temperature, displacement, and stress distributions of a sandwich arch. The results show that the temperature dependency of thermomechanical properties is a key parameter in predicting the thermoelastic behaviors of the arch in a high-temperature environment.