Elastic-plastic and residual stresses in symmetric thermoplastic laminated plates under a linear thermal loading

Abstract Thermal stresses are of great importance in composite structures. In this study, a thermal elastic-plastic stress analysis is carried out in (0°/90°) 2 , (30°/−30°) 2 , (45°/−45°) 2 , (60°/−60°) 2 symmetric thermoplastic laminated plates. Temperature changes linearly along the cross sections of the plates. It is zero and T o at the upper and lower surfaces, respectively. The distribution of the residual stress components of σ x and σ y are illustrated along the cross sections of the laminated plates for different thermal loading. Elastic-plastic and residual stress components are given in the tables. The strength of the laminated plates may be increased by using residual stress. Tsai–Hill Criterion is used as a yield criterion. Differential equations are solved numerically with a sufficiently large number of integration intervals of the temperature. The composite material is assumed to be linear strain hardening.