A theoretical investigation on the thermal response of laminated cylindrical panel

This paper presents a theoretical investigation on the temperature and thermal stress distributions developed in simply supported laminated open cylindrical panels subjected to thermal load. Cylindrical panels were divided into several thin layers, where the radial variable r in heat conduction equation and elasticity equations was approximately replaced by the center coordinate of each layer. The analytical expressions in terms of temperature, displacements and stresses can be then deduced in a thin layer. Transfer matrix method was used to recursively generate the relations of temperature, displacements and stresses between outermost and innermost surface for the laminated panel. The panel surface condition was thereafter used to determine the coefficients in the solutions. These coefficients were substituted in solutions for each thin layer to obtain the distributions of temperature, displacements and stresses in the panel. The number of the terms of series was used to check the solution convergence. The validity and feasibility of the proposed method were verified by comparing the theoretical results with the numerical results from the finite element method. The effects of surface temperatures, panel thickness, number of laminated layers and material properties were detailed and investigated with respect to the temperature, displacement and stresses distributions in the panel.