Thermal warping of layered composites

Abstract

The effect of shear deformation on a layered composite being heated to a prescribed temperature is analyzed according to a recently developed theory for unsymmetric laminated plates. Expanding the fundamental solutions of thermal stress and warping into a power series form, the first approximation gives us familiar formulas of classical plate theory. The second approximation leads to an equivalent Timoshenko’s plate equation. In addition to Timoshenko’s shear correction factor, a thermal shear correction parameter has to be introduced for thermal expansion problems.