NONLINEAR RESPONSE OF GEOMETRICALLY IMPERFECT SANDWICH CURVED PANELS UNDER THERMOMECHANICAL LOADING

This paper deals with the non-linear response of sandwich curved panel s exposed to thermomechanical loadings. The mechanical loads consist o f compressive/tensile edge loads, and a lateral pressure while the tem perature field is assumed to exhibit a linear variation through the th ickness of the panel. Towards obtaining the equations governing the po stbuckling response, the Extended Galerkin's Method is used. The numer ical illustrations concern doubly curved, circular cylindrical and as a special case, flat panels, all the edges being simply supported. Mov eable and immoveable tangential boundary conditions in the directions normal to the edges are considered and their implications upon the the rmomechanical load-carrying capacity are emphasized. Effects of the ra dii of curvature and of initial geometric imperfections on the load-ca rrying capacity of sandwich panels are also considered and their influ ence upon the intensity of the snap-through buckling are discussed. It is shown that in special cases involving the thermomechanical loading and initial geometric imperfection, the snap-through phenomenon can o ccur also in the case of hat sandwich panels. (C) 1998 Elsevier Scienc e Ltd. All rights reserved.