Effect of thermal gradients on stress/strain distributions in a thin circular symmetric plate

The analysis of thermally induced stresses in engineering structures is a very important and necessary task with respect to design and modeling of pressurized containers, heat exchangers, aircrafts segments, etc. to prevent them from failure and improve working conditions. So, the purpose of this study is to investigate elasto-plastic thermal stresses and deformations in a thin annular plate embedded into rigid container. To this end, analytical research devoted to mathematically and physically rigorous stress/strain analysis is performed. In order to evaluate the effect of logarithmic thermal gradients, commonly applied to structures which incorporate thin plate geometries, different thermal parameters such as temperature mismatch and varying constraint temperature were introduced into the model of elastic perfectly-plastic annular plate obeying the von Mises yield criterion with its associated flow rule. The results obtained may be used in sensitive to temperature differences aircraft structures where the thermal effects on equipment must be kept in mind.