NONLINEAR STATIC AND DYNAMIC ANALYSIS OF HEATED LAMINATED PLATES - A FINITE-ELEMENT APPROACH

The static and dynamic thermoelastic responses laminated plates have b een investigated by the use of a shear flexible finite element model. The model accounts for large deflections of the plate and non-uniform distributions of temperature. A nine-noded isoparametric element is im plemented to obtain the numerical solutions. The validity of the model is demonstrated by comparison with solutions available in the literat ure. A wide variety of results are presented for the non-linear respon se of rectangular and circular plates under thermal and thermo-mechani cal loads. The influences of anisotropy, boundary conditions, aspect r atio, rotary inertia and stacking sequence on the thermally induced re sponse are studied.