Thermo-mechanical analysis of multilayered composite beams based on a new mixed global-local model

Abstract

An accurate mixed-form global-local higher-order theory including transverse normal thermal deformation is developed for thermo-mechanical analysis of multilayered composite beams. Although transverse normal deformation is considered, the number of displacement parameters is not increased. The proposed mixed-form global-local higher-order theory is derived using the displacement assumptions of global-local higher-order theory in conjunction with the Reissner mixed variational theorem. Moreover, the mixed-form global-local higher-order theory retains a fixed number of displacement variables regardless of the number of layers. In order to obtain the improved transverse shear stresses, the three-dimensional equilibrium equation is used. It is significant that the second-order derivatives of in-plane displacement variables have been eliminated from the transverse shear stress field, such that the finite element implementation is greatly simplified. The benefit of the proposed mixed-form global-local higher-order theory is that no post-processing integration procedure is needed to accurately calculate the transverse shear stresses. The equilibrium equations and analytical solution of the proposed model can be obtained based on the Reissner mixed variational equation. The performance of the proposed model is assessed through different numerical examples, and the results show that the proposed model can better predict the thermo-mechanical responses of multilayered composite beams.