Thermoelastic Analysis of Laminated Composite Plates and Shells Based on High-Order Theory

Abstract

Due to increased use of laminated composite plates and shells as a primary structural elements the requirements of their analysis and design are constantly moving to a significantly higher level. The understanding of behaviour of these structures under different loading conditions including such as thermal, static, dynamic and their combinations becomes of paramount importance for the safe design. In the present paper a derivation of a new higher-order theory for the analysis of thermoelastic composite plates and shells is presented. The theory based on kinematic hypothesis which were derived on the basis of iterative technique, and it takes into account transverse shear deformations. It is shown that the results obtained on the basis of this theory are accurate and that the theory allows to improve understanding of the response of laminated composites under thermal and static loading.