Large thermo-elastic displacement and stability FEM analysis of multilayered plates and shells

The paper concerns the load capacity analysis of thermally loaded multilayered plates and shells. The multilayered body is treated as an equivalent single layer whose kinematics is consistent with the first-order shear deformation theory. The authors focus on the thermo-elastic stability problem of the thin-walled structures. The equilibrium paths are traced with the use of Riks-Wempner-Ramm algorithm. By making use of the Tsai-Wu hypothesis the material's strength examination is included in the study. The considered problems are resolved with the authors' program. The presented results confirm that proposed model can be very effective in the stability analysis of multilayered panels. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.