Three-dimensional thermal analysis of laminated composite plates

Abstract

In this paper, results of the stress analysis of multilayered plates subject to thermal and mechanical loads are presented in the context of the three-dimensional quasi-static theory of thermoelasticity. The governing equations for a plate composed of monoclinic layers and subject to any given temperature and mechanical load distributions are derived in terms of displacements. Making use of a Navier-like approach, exact three-dimensional solutions are obtained for cross-ply and antisymmetric angle-ply laminated rectangular plates subject to thermomechanical loads. Polynomial and exponential temperature distributions through the thickness are considered. Numerical results for plates with the simply supported boundary conditions are presented. It is shown that the inplane shear stresses at the corners are unbounded when plate faces are subject to uniform heating.