THERMO-ELASTICITY IN SHELL STRUCTURES MADE OF FUNCTIONALLY GRADED MATERIALS

Abstract

An efficient low order finite shell element is derived for the thermo-elastic analysis of shell structures made of functionally graded materials or multilayer composites.It is based on a one-way coupling between the thermal and the mechanical analysis.The thermal quantities are evaluated using a new iterative scheme that properly accounts for convection boundary conditions and large gradients of the thermal conductivity.The resulting non-constant temperature field with respect to the thickness direction gives nodal forces and couples, which are applied on a shear weak six parameter shell formulation.Here, drill rotations are included, supplemented with a proper method for calculating effective elastic properties.Numerical results indicate efficiency and accuracy of the proposed approach.