Nonlinear thermal displacements of laminated composite beams

In this paper, nonlinear displacements of laminated composite beams are investigated under non-uniform temperature rising with temperature dependent physical properties. Total Lagrangian approach is used in conjunction with the Timoshenko beam theory for nonlinear kinematic model. Material properties of the laminated composite beam are temperature dependent. In the solution of the nonlinear problem, incremental displacement-based finite element method is used with Newton-Raphson iteration method. The distinctive feature of this study is nonlinear thermal analysis of Timoshenko Laminated beams full geometric non-linearity and by using finite element method. In this study, the differences between temperature dependent and independent physical properties are investigated for laminated composite beams for nonlinear case. Effects of fiber orientation angles, the stacking sequence of laminates and temperature on the nonlinear displacements are examined and discussed in detail.