ACCURATE THERMAL-STRESS PREDICTIONS USING C-0-CONTINUOUS HIGHER-ORDERSHEAR-DEFORMABLE ELEMENTS

The behavior of C-0-continuous higher-order shear deformable finite el ement formulations when applied to thermal stress conditions is analyz ed critically. It is shown that, unlike in the first-order formulation s, the inconsistent initial strain field can also disturb the displace ment recovery in the higher-order shear deformable elements. In this p aper, the possible errors due to such inconsistent terms are a priori predicted in an analytical sense and validated by using linear and qua dratic beam element formulations. The paper suggests bow the total and the thermal strain components have to be consistently reconstituted t o get optimal accuracy from higher-order shear-deformable finite eleme nts for thermal stress analysis. A conflict between the consistency an d the continuity requirements is noticed in such formulations. The ext raneous errors observed in the variationally correct and consistent fo rmulations are attributed to this fact.