THERMAL BENDING OF THICK RECTANGULAR-PLATES OF BIMODULUS COMPOSITE-MATERIALS

Closed-form and finite-element solutions are presented for thermal bending and stretching of laminated composite plates. The material of each layer is assumed to be elastically and thermoelastically orthotropic and bimodular, i. e. , having different properties depending upon whether the fiber-direction normal strain is tensile or compressive. The formulations are based on the thermoelastic version of the J. Whitney-N. Pagano laminated plate theory, which includes thickness shear deformations. Numerical results are obtained for deflections and neutral-surface positions associated with normal strains in both of the in-plate coordinates. The closed-form and finite-eleement results are found to be in good agreement.